Volume Overview

For standard optimization problems, the volume constraint is necessary, for example, if the topology optimization is used in order to minimize the compliance (thus to maximize the stiffness) and no volume constraint is used, the optimizer simply fills up the whole design area with material.

Parameter Name

Formula

VOLUME

 ∑Ve

where Ve is the element volume. For topology optimization, design elements are scaled with the current relative density.

Analysis-Independent Design Response

For the volume, the following table shows the allowed combinations between the strategy and the items OBJ_FUNC and CONSTRAINT with C for controller and S for sensitivity-based optimization.

TOPO

SHAPE

BEAD

SIZING

OBJ_FUNC

C, S

C, S

S

CONSTRAINT

C, S

C, S

S