• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.343-349
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• 2022

This paper proposes a new topology optimization scheme to determine optimized joints for multi-component models. The joints are modeled as zero-length high-stiffness spring elements. The spring joints are considered as mesh-independent springs based on a joint-element interpolation scheme. This enables the changing of the location of the joints regardless of the connected nodes during optimization. Because the joints are movable, the locations of the optimized joints should be aggregated at several points. In this paper, the novel joint dispersal (JD) constraint to prevent joint clustering is proposed. With the joint dispersal constraint, it is possible to determine the optimized joint location as well as optimized topologies while maintaining the minimum distance between each joint. The mechanical compliance value is considered as the objective function. Several topology optimization examples are solved to demonstrate the effect of the joint dispersal constraint.