Static Stress Redesign of Plates by Large Admissible Perturbations

The LargE Admissible Perturbation (LEAP) methodology is developed further to solve static stress redesign problems for shell elements. The static stress general perturbation equation, which expresses the unknown stresses of the objective structure in terms of the baseline structure stresses, is derived first. This equation depends on the redesign variables for each element or group of elements; namely the plate thickness. LEAP enables the designer to redesign a structure to achieve specifications on modal properties, static displacements, forced response amplitudes, and static stresses. LEAP is implemented in code RESTRUCT which post-processes the FEA results of the baseline structure. Changes on the order of 100% in the above performance particulars and in redesign variables can be achieved without repetitive FEA’s. Several numerical applications on a simple plate and an offshore tower are used to verify the LEAP algorithm for stress redesign.