English

On Topology Optimization and Canonical Duality Method

Optimization and Control 2018-08-15 v2 Computational Geometry

Abstract

Topology optimization for general materials is correctly formulated as a bi-level knapsack problem, which is considered to be NP-hard in global optimization and computer science. By using canonical duality theory (CDT) developed by the author, the linear knapsack problem can be solved analytically to obtain global optimal solution at each design iteration. Both uniqueness, existence, and NP-hardness are discussed. The novel CDT method for general topology optimization is refined and tested by both 2-D and 3-D benchmark problems. Numerical results show that without using filter and any other artificial technique, the CDT method can produce exactly 0-1 optimal density distribution with almost no checkerboard pattern. Its performance and novelty are compared with the popular SIMP and BESO approaches. Additionally, some mathematical and conceptual mistakes in literature are explicitly pointed out. A brief review on the canonical duality theory for solving a unified problem in multi-scale nonconvex/discrete systems is given in Appendix.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1712.02919,
  title  = {On Topology Optimization and Canonical Duality Method},
  author = {David Yang Gao},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1712.02919},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

42 pages and 18 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T23:11:55.208Z