Meshing and integrated optimisation for free-form reticulated shells.

Presented herein is a study on the meshing and the integrated optimisation technique combined with configuration and mechanical behaviour for free-form reticulated shells. It focuses on the realisation of the practical layouts of meshes and improves the evaluation criteria for grid quality. For the preparation for the integrated optimisation, the bicubic quasi-uniform B-spline surface is applied to describe the free-form surface, and the energy method is introduced to smooth free-form reticulated shell through fairing factors. In order to perform optimisation automatically, a novel integrated optimisation system is established including fairing, finite element analysis (FEA) and optimisation programme modules. Based on the relationship between the fairing factors and the structural configuration, the zoned fairing factors are chosen as design variables (DVs). The FEA module is introduced to analyse and calculate the total structural strain energy of the structural components. By using the optimisation module, the optimum structural configuration can be found when the total structural strain energy reaches the minimum. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed optimisation technique is convenient and feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]