On optimum design of frame structures

We analyze actual methods that generate smooth frame fields both in 2D and in 3D. We formalize the 2D problem by representing frames as functions (as it was done in 3D), and show that the derived optimization problem is the one that previous work obtain via "representation vectors." We show (in 2D) why this non linear optimization problem is easier to solve than directly minimizing the rotation angle of the field, and observe that the 2D algorithm is able to find good fields....

We show that (i) any constrained polynomial optimization problem (POP) has an equivalent formulation on a variety contained in an Euclidean sphere and (ii) the resulting semidefinite relaxations in the moment-SOS hierarchy have the constant trace property (CTP) for the involved matrices. We then exploit the CTP to avoid solving the semidefinite relaxations via interior-point methods and rather use ad-hoc spectral methods that minimize the largest eigenvalue of a matrix pencil...

In this chapter we survey two topics that have recently been investigated in frame theory. First, we give an overview of the class of scalable frames. These are (finite) frames with the property that each frame vector can be rescaled in such a way that the resulting frames are tight. This process can be thought of as a preconditioning method for finite frames. In particular, we: (1) describe the class of scalable frames; (2) formulate various equivalent characterizations of s...

We present a novel efficient theoretical and numerical framework for solving global non-convex polynomial optimization problems. We analytically demonstrate that such problems can be efficiently reformulated using a non-linear objective over a convex set; further, these reformulated problems possess no spurious local minima (i.e., every local minimum is a global minimum). We introduce an algorithm for solving these resulting problems using the augmented Lagrangian and the met...

A Short Course on Frame Theory.

The robust truss topology optimization against the uncertain static external load can be formulated as mixed-integer semidefinite programming. Although a global optimal solution can be computed with a branch-and-bound method, it is very time-consuming. This paper presents an alternative formulation, semidefinite programming with complementarity constraints, and proposes an efficient heuristic. The proposed method is based upon the convex-concave procedure for DC (difference-o...

In this paper, we propose a topology optimization (TO) framework where the design is parameterized by a set of convex polygons. Extending feature mapping methods in TO, the representation allows for direct extraction of the geometry. In addition, the method allows one to impose geometric constraints such as feature size control directly on the polygons that are otherwise difficult to impose in density or level set based approaches. The use of polygons provides for more more v...

This work presents an extended formulation of maximal stiffness design, within the framework of the topology optimization. The mathematical formulation of the optimization problem is based on the postulated principle of equal dissipation rate during inelastic deformation. This principle leads to the enforcement of stress constraints in domains where inelastic deformation would occur. During the transition from the continuous structure to the truss-like one (strut-and-tie mode...

The problem of minimizing a polynomial over a set of polynomial inequalities is an NP-hard non-convex problem. Thanks to powerful results from real algebraic geometry, one can convert this problem into a nested sequence of finite-dimensional convex problems. At each step of the associated hierarchy, one needs to solve a fixed size semidefinite program, which can be in turn solved with efficient numerical tools. On the practical side however, there is no-free lunch and such op...

In this paper, we consider a bilevel polynomial optimization problem where the objective and the constraint functions of both the upper and the lower level problems are polynomials. We present methods for finding its global minimizers and global minimum using a sequence of semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxations and provide convergence results for the methods. Our scheme for problems with a convex lower-level problem involves solving a transformed equivalent single-level p...