Abstract: Aiming at the poor stiffness performance under the coarse improved SIMP (ISIMP) mesh and too many branches under the fine mesh of the optimized structure based on SIMP for continuum structure topology optimization, a continuum structure topology optimization method based on improved SIMP method was proposed. The mathematical model of SIMP was improved that element differential method (EDM) was adopted as the theoretical basis for mechanical response analysis, the sum of products of stress and strain at the center point of all elements was used as the optimized objective function, and the proportional topology optimization (PTO) method was combined to solve the mathematical model numerically. Based on the ISIMP method, the cantilever beam was subjected to topology optimization experiments under different mesh scales. The results indicate that the stiffness of the optimized structure for the cantilever beam has a better stiffness performance and gets a more significantly improvement under the coarse mesh. Moreover, this method reduces the number of small branches effectively which improve the manufacturability of the optimized structure under the fine mesh.

Key words: improved SIMP (ISIMP); element differential method (EDM); proportional topology optimization (PTO); continuum structure topology optimization