Abstract
In this work an integrated procedure to obtain optimal structural configurations was developed. The method is based on the individuation of the optimal bulk distribution in the inside of a given domain subdivided in finite elements (topological optimisation) and in the following boundary refine (shape optimisation). The procedure has been realised with the purpose of minimise the strain energy of the component, supposed in elastic field, in the respect of imposed constraints, beyond that on the mass, on the maximum stress. A dedicated algori thm has been constructed, based on the conjugate direction method, implemented in Visual Basic and interfaced with a FEM code (used for the calculus of the objective function and of stress field). The results of the analyses for an example structure show the goodness of the implemented procedure in terms of elaboration time and in relation at the minimum value obtained for the objective function.