Abstract
This study investigates the topology optimization design of the non-uniform thickness plate design under out-of-plane deformation. As the first trial, this study formulates the design problem as the two-step optimization problem and adopts the level set-based topology optimization method. At the first step, the optimum material distribution with uniform thickness plate is obtained. Then, the thickness distribution inside of the material region is obtained, where the plate thickness is assumed to have the two types of thickness, thin and thick regions. Through numerical examples, validity of the two-step method is discussed. For the mean compliance minimization design problem, it is found that the peripheral region close to the void region is reduced the thickness.
