A superelement formulation for the efficient layout design of complex multi-component system

In view of the prohibited computing time and the complexity of design procedure, a superelement formulation (SEF) is proposed to deal with the simultaneous optimization of component placement and the framework topology. In the iterative design process, each component is modelled as a movable superelement so that the sensitivity analysis with respect to the location design variables can be largely simplified by the SEF. Moreover, based on the Kuhn-Tucker optimality condition, two decomposition strategies are developed as variant approaches for the simultaneous design of multi-component system. By means of numerical examples, these approaches are compared to show their capability and efficiency for the system compliance minimization.