Topology and geometry optimization of elastic structures by exact deformation of simplicial mesh

We propose a method for structural optimization that relies on two alternative descriptions of shapes: on the one hand, they are exactly meshed so that mechanical evaluations by finite elements are accurate; on the other hand, we resort to a level-set characterization to describe their deformation along the shape gradient. The key ingredient is a meshing algorithm for building a mesh, suitable for numerical computations, out of a piecewise linear level-set function on an unstructured mesh. Therefore, our approach is at the same time a geometric optimization method (since shapes are exactly meshed) and a topology optimization method (since the topology of successive shapes can change thanks to the power of the level-set method). (C) 2011 Academie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.