Shape Design of Frame Structures for Vibration Suppression and Weight Reduction

This paper proposes shape design of frame structures for vibration suppression and weight reduction. The $H_{\infty}$ norm of the transfer function from disturbance sources to the output points where vibration should be suppressed, is adopted as the performance index to represent the magnitude of vibration transfer. The design parameters are the node positions of the frame structure, on which constraints are imposed so that the structure achieves given tasks. For computation of Pareto optimal solutions to the two-objective design problem, a number of linear combinations of the $H_{\infty}$ norm and the total weight of the structure are considered and minimized. For minimization of the scalared objective function, a Lagrange function is defined by the objective function and the imposed constraints on the design parameters. The solution for which the Lagrange function satisfies the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker condition, is searched by the sequential quadratic programming (SQP) method. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design method.