Explicit layout control in optimal design of structural systems with multiple embedding components

In this paper, two novel methods are proposed for optimizing the layout of structural systems with embedding components considering the minimum/maximum distance constraints between the components. The key ideas are using level set functions to describe the shapes of arbitrary irregular embedding components and resorting to the concept of structural skeleton to formulate the distance control constraints explicitly. Numerical examples presented demonstrate that the proposed approaches can give a complete control of the layout of embedding components in an explicit and local way.