Interface shape identification of three-dimensional thermo-elastic composite structures consisting of dissimilar materials

Abstract

Shape design of composite structures composed of dissimilar materials moves more into the field of vision for designers. In this paper we propose a shape identification method for the interface and/or outside shape design of composite structures consisting of dissimilar thermo-elastic materials under a thermal loading condition. We aim at controlling thermal displacements at a prescribed boundary to target values. The square displacement error norm is minimized by varying the interface and the outside shapes as the design boundary. The shape gradient function derived using the material derivative method is applied to the H¹ gradient method. With this method, the optimal interface and outside shape with smoothness can be determined without any shape parameterization. The numerical results of the given examples show that the thermal displacements of solid structures composed of dissimilar materials can be well controlled using the proposed shape identification method, which would be helpful for designing solid structures composed of dissimilar materials.