Topology Optimization of Free Damping Treatments on Plates Using Level Set Method

Abstract

Application of level set method to optimize the topology of free damping treatments on plates is investigated. The objective function is defined as a combination of several desired modal loss factors solved by the finite element-modal strain energy method. The finite element model for the composite plate is described as combining the level set function. A clamped rectangle composite plate is numerically and experimentally analyzed. The optimized results for a single modal show that the proposed method has the possibility of nucleation of new holes inside the material domain, and the final design is insensitive to initial designs. The damping treatments are guided towards the areas with high modal strain energy. For the multimodal case, the optimized result matches the normalized modal strain energy of the base plate, which would provide a simple implementation way for industrial application. Experimental results show good agreements with the proposed method. The experimental results are in good agreement with the optimization results. It is very promising to see that the optimized result for each modal has almost the same damping effect as that of the full coverage case, and the result for multimodal gets moderate damping at each modal.