Design Domain Dependent Preferences for Multi-disciplinary Body-in-White Concept Optimization

Recently methods for topology optimization are increasingly established in the virtual vehicle design process in the automobile industry. In particular a heuristic topology optimization process based on the assumption of uniform energy distribution throughout the structure combined with a scaled energy weighting approach was demonstrated to successfully to provide concepts for vehicle structures subject to static and crash loads concurrently. However, topology optimization for problems with multiple load cases is conventionally based on the assumption of all loads requirements being relevant throughout the complete design domain. This neglects potential design targets such as the restriction of certain load paths to specialized subdomains. For instance, typically, the energy absorption of a front crash of a vehicle is expected to be limited to components in the front of the vehicle. In this work we propose to address this issue for topology optimization of LS-DYNA® models subject to multiple load cases by subdomains with design domain dependent preferences. This enables a specialization of subdomains to the designer’s requirements. We show systematic evaluation results on a cantilever optimization problem and a possible application to the vehicle concept design.