English

A "poor man's" approach to topology optimization of natural convection problems

Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science 2019-02-20 v2

Abstract

Topology optimization of natural convection problems is computationally expensive, due to the large number of degrees of freedom (DOFs) in the model and its two-way coupled nature. Herein, a method is presented to reduce the computational effort by use of a reduced-order model governed by simplified physics. The proposed method models the fluid flow using a potential flow model, which introduces an additional fluid property. This material property currently requires tuning of the model by comparison to numerical Navier-Stokes based solutions. Topology optimization based on the reduced-order model is shown to provide qualitatively similar designs, as those obtained using a full Navier-Stokes based model. The number of DOFs is reduced by 50% in two dimensions and the computational complexity is evaluated to be approximately 12.5% of the full model. We further compare to optimized designs obtained utilizing Newton's convection law.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1809.01900,
  title  = {A "poor man's" approach to topology optimization of natural convection problems},
  author = {Janus Asmussen and Joe Alexandersen and Ole Sigmund and Casper Schousboe Andreasen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1809.01900},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

Preprint version. Please refer to final version in Structural Multidisciplinary Optimization https://doi.org/10.1007/s00158-019-02215-9