Structural optimization for statics, dynamics and beyond

Summary A narrative of the development of optimization leading to the current use of this technology in industry has been offered. Development of this technology has followed two distinct tracks. One is optimization algorithms for general applications and the other is special techniques for structural optimization. The distinction is that structural optimization methods create a high quality approximation based on physics (as opposed to simple linearization) to improve efficiency and robustness and then uses a general purpose optimizer to solve this approximate problem. Commercial software is available for both classes of problems. This software is highly refined and can be used with very limited knowledge of optimization theory. Finally, a variety of applications have been presented to demonstrate the power available today. It is noted that some of these examples are not actual commercial applications because those are usually proprietary. Indeed, to the best of this author’s knowledge, the largest structural sizing optimization problem solved in industry exceeds 250,000 design variables with topology optimization problems exceeding two million variables. It is concluded that the state of the art is well refined and is readily available in the commercial environment to improve design quality, reduce design time and increase corporate profits. Indeed, it is argued that no computational technology today is as effective as an advanced design tool as is numerical optimization.