Topology optimization of porous structures by considering acoustic and mechanical characteristics.

• A new approach for designing mechanical-acoustic porous structures is proposed; • The mixed u / p formulation with the linear material interpolation is integrated with topology optimization; • The porous features are generated to improve acoustic performance; • Interesting 2D and 3D examples are presented. Porous structures are widely found in nature and have been extensively studied due to their high stiffness-to-weight ratio, excellent sound absorption, and robustness regarding loading variation. This paper proposes a new topology optimization approach for the design of porous acoustic-mechanical structures based on the three-field floating projection topology optimization (FPTO) method. In order to capture the change of ambiguous structural boundary during topology optimization, the mixed displacement/pressure (u / p) finite element formulation with the linear material interpolation scheme is adopted. The artificial porous features of the structures are generated by imposing the local volume constraint defined by a constant or adaptive filter radius. The 0/1 constraints of the design variables are simulated by the floating projection constraint so that the final design has a clear topology. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, some interesting 2D and 3D numerical examples considering their mechanical and acoustic characteristics simultaneously are presented to achieve porous structures by minimizing dynamic compliance, possibly with an additional acoustic constraint. The results also show that the resulting porous features are useful in improving the acoustic performance of the optimized designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]