Hello everyone, I'm trying to find an optimal beam layout to design an engine mount through topology optimization. The original mass of the design space is 360 kg. I want to reduce it to an ideal mass of below 6 kg. However, topology optimization won't allow the volume fraction to be less than three times the element density threshold (MINDENS) which by default is 0.01. That means the lowest volume fraction I can achieve is 0.03. But 0.03 of the original mass is just 10 kg. To achieve the mass of 6 kg, I will need to reduce the MINDENS to at most 0.0056 that will achieve volume fraction of 0.0167.
However, this will produce a visually unfeasible result even when the solution converged. I think the default value 0.01 is the lowest I can go. I can't reduce the design space anymore as this is region that I want the solution to cover. Is there any other possible ways that I can use to reduce the volume fraction without altering the MINDENS value?
The first picture is my design space model. Four non-design space, two at front an two at the back.
The second picture is when MINDENS=0.009 and volume fraction of 0.027.
The third picture is when the MINDENS=0.01 and volume fraction of 0.05. Here, plates exist in the solution and the mass is 18 kg.
Any advice is much appreciated. Thank you.
