Abstract

To date the design of structures via topology optimisation methods has mainly focused on single-objective problems. However, real-world design problems usually involve several different objectives, most of which counteract each other. This work presents an updated smart normal constraint method, which is combined with a bi-directional evolutionary structural optimisation algorithm for multi-objective topology optimisation. The smart normal constraints method has been modified by further restricting the feasible design space for each optimisation run such that dominant and redundant points are not found. The algorithm is tested on several different structural optimisation problems. A number of different structural objectives are analysed, namely compliance, dynamic and buckling objectives. Therefore, the method is shown to be capable of solving various types of multi-objective structural optimisation problems. The goal of this work is to show that smart Pareto sets can be produced for complex topology optimisation problems. Furthermore, this research hopes to highlight the gap in the literature of topology optimisation for multi-objective problems.