Multi-objective structural-acoustic optimization of beams made of functionally graded materials

This paper presents a study of multi-objective structural-acoustic optimization of elastic beams made of functionally graded materials. The goal of this research is to discover the potentials to design multi-objective optimal volume fraction for better acoustic performance. The transfer matrix method is applied to obtain the structural-acoustic response of functionally graded beams. The hybrid of particle swarm optimization and cell mapping method is used to search for the Pareto optimal solutions. Two well-known distribution laws of material distribution are considered and compared with the spline interpolation of material distribution when spatially sampled material properties are used as design variables. Several cases are studied to demonstrate the multi-objective optimal design of functionally graded beams.