Resumen de Multi‐domain topology optimization with ant colony systems

Lucas de S. Batista, Felipe Campelo, Frederico G. Guimaraes, J. A. Ramirez

• Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a graph representation of the design space that is suitable for the ant colony optimization (ACO) method in topology optimization (TO) problems.

  Design/methodology/approach – The ACO is employed to obtain optimal routes in an equivalent graph representation of the discretized design space, with each route corresponding to a given distribution of material.

  Findings – The problem associated with the maximization of the torque of a c‐core magnetic actuator is investigated, in which part of the yoke is discretized into a 16×8 grid and can assume three different materials: air, pure iron and a magnetic material.

  Research limitations/implications – The results of the c‐core magnetic actuator problem, which are in agreement with literature available, show the adequacy of the proposed approach to TO of electromagnetic devices.

  Practical implications – The graph representation of the design space permits the solution of topological design problems with an arbitrary number of materials.

  Originality/value – The results illustrate the potential of the methodology in dealing with multi‐domain TO problems, and the possibility to extend the application to 3D problems.