Author(s)

F. Navarrina, A. Valera, J. Par´ıs, I. Colominas & M. Casteleiro

Abstract

As a general rule, optimum design problems can be written in terms of non linear constrained minimization statements. In many engineering problems the required underlying analysis can involve quite sophisticated numerical techniques. This should rocket the computational cost associated to repeatedly sampling the objective function and the constraints. On the other hand, the tools provided by the existing CAD systems do not allow one to define parametric designs for any kind of object with enough flexibility. Moreover, most of the available commercial computer programs for engineering problems do not include the corresponding sensitivity analysis techniques. And, in any case, the computational cost associated with performing a full high-order sensitivity analysis should normally be unacceptable in practice. For all of these reasons, we are still far from being able to develop a kind of universal purpose optimum design system for real engineering problems. However, we can think of developing specific purpose optimum design systems for particular families of engineering problems. In this paper we present a specific purpose shape optimization system for a particular family of high tension towers. The system conforms to the corresponding Spanish Standard. The shape optimization problem is solved by means of an improved sequential linear programming algorithm with quadratic line search. The system performs the sensitivity analysis up to the second order by means of analytical techniques. Finally, several application examples are presented and discussed.

Keywords