TOPOLOGY OPTIMIZATION OF SPACE STRUCTURES USING ANT COLONY METHOD

In this article, the ant colony method is utilized for topology optimization of space structures. Strain energy of the structure is minimized while the material volume is limited to a certain amount. In other words, the stiffest possible structure is sought when certain given materials are used. In addition, a noise cleaning technique is addressed to prevent undesirable members in optimum topology. The performance of the method for topology optimization of space structures are demonstrated by three numerical examples.