Optimal Design of Mechatronic Devices

Seeking for an optimal solution in a design problem is a major preoccupation in the industry, owing to the significant economic issues related to the development of a product.In this context, assisting – or even replacing – the designer with new design tools requires the elaboration of a new research field. This is of particular interest if the problem involves multiphysics phenomena.The tools that we recently developed propose new methods in:

Parametric optimization, in order to optimize the dimensions of a solution proposed by the designer.
Geometrical optimization, in order to further modify the initial geometry of the designer.
Topological optimization, in order to further explore different (and better) topologies from an initially blank space.

Topology optimization of electromagnetic devices using deterministic methods

Details: Written by Thibaut Labbé

Topology optimization methods aim at designing devices in an automated way. The designer defines a design space which is divided in cells, a library of materials and the objective function. The method goal is then to maximize or minimize this objective function by distributing optimally the materials in the cells.

This research aims at developing topology optimization methods based on deterministic algorithms for the design of electromagnetic devices. Deterministic algorithms are indeed characterized by a fast convergence, but are usually faced with two main challenge: the presence of local minimizers and the handling of intermediate materials (mixes of different materials in the same cell). The former prevent the algorithm from finding the optimal solution, whereas the latter must be removed in the final design in order to obtain a manufacturable topology.

Through the consideration of different study cases, two groups of methods have been developed. The isotropic methods are based on materials characterized by isotropic properties. Each material is then referred to by a unique design variable per cell describing its proportion in the cell. These methods are usually simple to apply, but the range of problems on which they are effective is limited. The second group is called the anisotropic methods, in which an anisotropic permeability is considered for the iron material. These methods involve a larger number of design variable in order to represent the iron anisotropy, but can be applied to wider range of problems.