MATERIAL-BASED SUBDOMAIN HYBRID CELLULAR AUTOMATA ALGORITHM FOR MATERIAL OPTIMIZATION OF THIN-WALLED FRAME STRUCTURES

Abstract

A material-based subdomain hybrid cellular automata algorithm for solving material optimization of thin-walled frame structures includes an outer loop and an inner loop. The outer loop is to define and update the target cost for the inner loop, and the inner loop is to adjust material using a PID control strategy according to the nominal flow stress of a current cell and the nominal flow stress of candidate materials, so that a current cost of the inner loop converges to the target cost. The material-based subdomain hybrid cellular automata algorithm can effectively solve a nonlinear dynamic response optimization problem in the discrete design space.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to the technical field of crashworthiness optimization of thin-walled frame structures, and specifically to a material-based subdomain hybrid cellular automata algorithm for solving material optimization of thin-walled frame structures.

BACKGROUND

Bodies of car, rail transit and engineering machinery are typical space frame structures assembled by a variety of thin-walled structures of different materials. To use multi-material thin-walled frame structures is an effective way and an inevitable trend to optimize the safety and cost requirements of automotive, rail transit and engineering machinery. To select the best material and to do optimization design of the multi-material thin-walled frame structures can not only improve the mechanical properties (such as crashworthiness) of thin-walled frame structures, but also reduce their costs. The multi-material matching optimization of thin-walled frame structures with considering crashworthiness and cost is a typical nonlinear dynamic response optimization problem including many discrete variables. Due to the high level of non-linearity in the output response of crash simulation and the presence of numerical noise and oscillation, the gradient-based optimization algorithm is difficult to effectively solve the crashworthiness optimization problem of thin-walled frame structures. Evolutionary algorithms usually need to perform thousands of finite element analyses (FEAs), which leads to a very long optimization time. The optimization algorithms based on the surrogate model is the main way to solve the problems mentioned above. However, when the number of design variables is large (such as more than 30 or even more), the optimization efficiency of the optimization algorithm based on the surrogate model will also be greatly reduced.

Hybrid Cellular Automata (HCA) method is a non-gradient heuristic algorithm that can solve nonlinear dynamic response optimization problems including many discrete variables (such as material density or thickness). However, the existing methods are mainly based on the idea of uniform distribution of internal energy density (IED) to update material density or thickness. It is difficult to solve the multi-material optimization problem of thin-walled frame structures with multiple performance constraint functions, and easy to fall into local optimal solution. Presently, few efficient algorithms can be employed to solve the nonlinear dynamic response optimization problem with many material variables in the discrete design space.

SUMMARY

In view of the deficiencies in the prior art, the present invention provides a material-based subdomain hybrid cellular automata algorithm for solving material optimization of thin-walled frame structures which can efficiently solve a nonlinear dynamic response optimization problem with many material variables.

The present invention achieves the technical object mentioned above by the following technical means.

A material-based subdomain hybrid cellular automata(M-SHCA) algorithm for solving material optimization of thin-walled frame structures includes the following steps:

• • S1. establishing an initial crash finite element model, constructing a subdomain cellular automata model, defining material variables and field variables of thin-walled frame structures, and employing the initial crash finite element model for material and cost optimization;
  • S2. executing an outer loop: calculating a cell IED and a constraint value at a current design point by FEA, and updating the target cost by the penalty function method according to the extent of the current design point violating the constraint boundary;
  • S3. executing an inner loop with the following steps:
  • S3.1. constructing a step IED target (SIED*) function and updating the target IED;
  • S3.2. updating cell material using material updating rule based on a PID control strategy;

Specifically: defining a candidate material library and a nominal flow stress of each material, updating the nominal flow stress of a current cell, comparing a nominal flow stress with the true flow stress of each material in the candidate material library, selecting a candidate material closest to the nominal flow stress as a selected material of current cell, and replacing material parameters of current cell with the mechanical parameters of the selected material;

• • S3.3. processing to S4 if an inner loop is convergent, otherwise returning to S3.1;
  • S4. writing out an optimization result if the global convergence conditions in the outer loop are satisfied, otherwise returning to S2 for updating cell material in the inner loop.Further, a candidate material library is defined as follows:

$\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{Mat}=\left\{\mathrm{Mat}\left(1\right),L,\mathrm{Mat}\left(s\right),L,\mathrm{Mat}\left(1\right)\right\},1\le s\le l\\ =\begin{array}{c}\{\left({\rho }_1,E_1,{\sigma }_{y1},{\sigma }_{u1},{\sigma }_{f1},L\right),L,({\rho }_s,E_s,{\sigma }_{\mathrm{ys}},\\ {\sigma }_{\mathrm{us}},{\sigma }_{\mathrm{fs}},L)L,\left({\rho }_l,E_l,{\sigma }_{\mathrm{yl}},{\sigma }_{\mathrm{ul}},{\sigma }_{\mathrm{fl}},L\right)\}\end{array}\end{array}$

where, ρ_s is a density of the sth material in the candidate material library; E_s is an elastic modulus of the sth material in the candidate material library; σ_ys is a yield strength of the sth material in the candidate material library;

${\sigma }_{\mathrm{fs}}=\sqrt{\frac{{\sigma }_{\mathrm{ys}}{\sigma }_{\mathrm{us}}}{1+n}}$

is a flow stress of the sth material in the candidate material library; σ_us is a tensile strength of the sth material in the candidate material library; :1≥2 is the number of materials in the candidate library.Furthermore, a nominal flow stress is a non-physical parameter, which is a positive real number. Further, a nominal flow stress of each cell is updated as follows:

${\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h+1,k\right)}=\{\begin{array}{cc}{\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\min },& {\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h,k\right)}+{\mathrm{\Delta \sigma }}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h,k\right)}<{\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\min }\\ {\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h,k\right)}+{\mathrm{\Delta \sigma }}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h,k\right)},& {\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\min }\le {\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h,k\right)}+{\mathrm{\Delta \sigma }}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h,k\right)}\le {\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\max }\\ {\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\max },& {\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h,k\right)}+{\mathrm{\Delta \sigma }}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h,k\right)}>{\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\max }\end{array}$

where, σ_Ωi,j′^(h,k) is a nominal flow stress of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω₁ in the hth inner loop and the kth outer loop; σ_Ωi,j′^(h+1,k) is a nominal flow stress of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω₁ in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop; σ_Ωi,j^min and σ_Ωi,j^max are a minimize value and a maximum value of actual flow stress of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω₁, respectively; Δσ_Ωi,j′^(h,k) is a nominal flow stress variation of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω₁ in the hth inner loop and the kth outer loop:

Δσ_Ωi,j′^(h,k)=(σ_Ωi,j^max−σ_Ωi,j^min)f(e_Ωi,j^(h,k))

where, e_Ωi,j^(h,k) denotes a difference between the current IED S_Ωi,j^(k) and a target IED S_m′*^(h,k) and a PID control function for updating the nominal flow stress f(e_Ωi,j^(h,k)) is given as follows:

$f\left(e_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h,k\right)}\right)=K_p{e}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h,k\right)}+K_i\left[e_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h,k\right)}+\sum _{\tau =1}^{k-1}{e}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(\tau \right)}\right]+K_d\left[e_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h,k\right)}-e_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(k-1\right)}\right]$

where, K_p is a proportional control coefficient; K_i is an integral control coefficient; K_d is a differential control coefficient; e_Ωi,j^(r) is a relative deviation item of the rth outer loop; e_Ωi,j^(k−1) is a relative deviation item of the (k−1)th outer loop.Furthermore, the following equation is used to select a candidate material closest to the nominal flow stress as the selected material of the current cell by comparing the nominal flow stress with the true flow stress of each material in the candidate material library:

$\{\begin{array}{c}{\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h+1,k\right)}-{\sigma }_{\mathrm{fp}}=\min \left({\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h+1,k\right)}-{\sigma }_{f1},L,{\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h+1,k\right)}-{\sigma }_{fs},L,{\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h+1,k\right)}-{\sigma }_{\mathrm{fl}}\right)\\ {\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h+1,k\right)}={\sigma }_{\mathrm{fp}}\\ {\mathrm{Mat}}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h+1,k\right)}=\mathrm{Mat}\left(p\right)\end{array}$

where, p denotes a position of the selected material in the candidate material library, σ_fp is an actual flow stress of the selected material; σ_Ωi,j^(h+1,k) is an actual flow stress of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω₁ in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop; Mat(p) denotes a selected material; Mat_Ωi,j^(h+1,k) denotes a selected material of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω₁ in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop; σ_s is a flow stress of the sth material in the candidate material library.Further, the following equation is employed to replace material parameters of a current cell with mechanical parameters of selected material:

$\left(\begin{array}{c}{\rho }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h+1,k\right)}\\ E_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h+1,k\right)}\\ {\sigma }_{y,{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h+1,k\right)}\\ {\sigma }_{u,{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h+1,k\right)}\\ {\sigma }_{f,{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h+1,k\right)}\\ L\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{c}{\rho }_p\\ E_p\\ {\sigma }_{\mathrm{yp}}\\ {\sigma }_{\mathrm{up}}\\ {\sigma }_{\mathrm{fp}}\\ L\end{array}\right)$

where, ρ_Ωi,j^(h+1,k) is a material density of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω_i in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop; E_Ωi,j^(h+1,k) is an elastic modulus of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω_i in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop; σ_y,Ωi,j^(h+1,k) is a yield tress of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω_i in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop; σ_u,Ωi,j^(h+1,k) is a tensile strength of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω_i in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop; σ_f,Ωi,j^(h+1,k) is a flow stress of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω_i in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop; ρ_p is a material density of a selected material; E_p is an elastic modulus of the selected material; σ_yp is a yield tress of the selected material; σ_up is a tensile strength of the selected material; σ_fp is a flow stress of the selected material; σ_up is a tensile strength of selected material; σ_fp is a flow stress of selected material.

Furthermore, global convergence conditions comprise:

|C^(h,k)−C*^(k)|<ε₁ or k₁≥k_1max

where

$C^{\left(h,k\right)}=\stackrel{l}{\sum _{i=1}}\stackrel{N}{\sum _{j=1}}{C}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h,k\right)}$

is a total cost in the hth inner loop and the kth outer loop, here C_Ωi,j^(h,k) is a cell cost in the hth inner loop and the kth outer loop; C*^(k) is a target cost defined in the kth outer loop; ε₁ is an inner loop convergence factor; k₁ is the number of iterations in the inner loop; k_1max is a maximum number of iterations in the inner loop; a cell cost of the selected material of the jth cell in the subdornain Ω₁ in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop C_Ωi,j^(h+1,k) is calculated as follows:

C _{Ω i,j} ^(h+1,k)=ξ_Ωi,j^(h+1,k)ρ_Ωi,j^(h+1,k)t_Ωi,jA_Ωi,j

where, ξ_Ωi,j^(h+1,k) is a price of the selected material of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω₁ in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop, ρ_{106 i,j}^(h+1,k) is a density of the selected material of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω₁ in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop, t_Ωi,j is a thickness of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω₁, and A_Ωi,j is an area of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω₁.

The present invention has the following beneficial effects:

• • (1) The inner loop introduces the nominal flow stress in the present invention which converts discrete material variables into continuous variables, and then the cell material updating rule based on a PID control strategy is used to realize the iterative updating of cell material and improve the robustness of the M-SHCA algorithm.
  • (2) The M-SHCA algorithm can solve nonlinear dynamic response optimization problems containing many material variables which not only has high searching efficiency (less computational resources and less finite element simulations), but also has good global convergence accuracy.
  • (3) The present invention introduces the concept of subdomain cellular automata model based on the topological structural characteristics of thin-walled frame structure to solve the nonlinear dynamic response optimization problems in a discrete design space.
  • (4) A step target IED update rule is used in the present invention to update the cell material in the inner loop, thereby improving the global optimal solution searching ability of the M-SHCA. algorithm.
  • (5) Gradient information is not necessary to be calculated during the optimization process of the present invention, which has a great advantage in solving complex nonlinear problems where sensitivity information is hard to obtain.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a flowchart of the M-SHCA algorithm for solving material optimization of thin-walled frame structure in the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of the definition of a subdomain cellular automata (SCA) model in the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a horizontal internal energy density target (HIED*) function in the present invention;

FIGS. 4A-4B are schematic diagrams of a step target IED function in the present invention, in which, FIG. 4A is a schematic diagram of a step target IED function when H_threshold=0 and V_threshold=1 and FIG. 4B is a schematic diagram of a step target IED function when H_threshold=3 and V_threshold=1.1;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of a full-vehicle side crash finite element model in the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of a SCA model of a car body beam frame in the present invention;

FIG. 7 is effective stress-strain curves of candidate materials in the present invention;

FIG. 8 is measuring points at B-pillar, in which points A and B are respectively locations related to the loading positions to passenger's chest and pelvis;

FIGS. 9A-9C are curve diagrams of iteration processes of M-HCA#1 algorithm in the present invention, where FIG. 9A is a diagram illustrating total cost convergence curve, FIG. 9B is a diagram of an iteration process with a maximum intrusion amount, and FIG. 9C is a diagram of an iteration process with a maximum intrusion velocity;

FIGS. 10A-10C are curve diagrams of iteration processes of M-HCA#2 algorithm in the present invention, where FIG. 10A is a diagram illustrating total cost convergence curve, FIG. 10B is a diagram of an iteration process with a maximum intrusion amount and FIG. 10C is a diagram of an iteration process with a maximum intrusion velocity;

FIGS. 11A-11B are curve diagrams of iteration processes of a parallel EGO-PCEI algorithm in the present invention, where FIG. 11A is a diagram illustrating total cost convergence curve, FIG. 11B is a diagram of an iteration process with a. maximum intrusion amount, and FIG. 11C is a diagram of an iteration process with a maximum intrusion velocity;

FIG. 12 is a schematic diagram of comparing the computational resources and computational time of M-HCA#1, M-HCA#2 and parallel EGO-PCEI algorithms;

FIGS. 13A-13D are comparison diagrams of an intrusion amounts and an intrusion velocity of measuring points at B-pillar before and after optimization in the present invention, where FIG. 13A is a comparison diagram of B-pillar intrusion amount curves at chest location, FIG. 13B is a comparison diagram of B-pillar intrusion amount at pelvis location, FIG. 13C is a comparison diagram of B-pillar intrusion velocity at chest location, and FIG. 13D is a comparison diagram of B-pillar intrusion velocity at pelvis location;

FIGS. 14A-14B are comparison diagrams of deformation patterns of a car body before and after optimization in the present invention, where FIG. 14A is a diagram of a car body deformation pattern before optimization, and FIG. 14B is a diagram of a car body deformation pattern after optimization.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

The present invention is further illustrated below with reference to the accompanying drawings and specific embodiments, but the protection scope of the present invention is not limited thereto.

As shown in FIG. 1, a material-based subdomain hybrid cellular automata(M-SHCA) algorithm for solving material optimization of thin-walled frame structures specifically includes the following steps:

• • S1: An initial crash finite element model of a thin-walled frame structures is established for the material and cost optimization of thin-walled frame structure;

A finite element preprocessor software (such as HyperMesh or LS-Prepost) is used to discrete a full-vehicle geometric model into its finite element meshes, and then assign attributes, materials, boundary conditions and initial conditions for each part of the finite element meshes to complete the full-vehicle crash finite element model for the material and cost optimization of thin-walled frame structures.

• • S2: A subdomain cellular automata model of thin-walled frame structures is established and its material variables and field variables are defined;

The concept of “subdomain Cellular Automata (CA) model” is introduced in a discrete design space based on a conventional CA model, as shown in FIG. 2. Assume that a global design space Ω is fragmented into/discrete subdomains Ω_i (i+1,2,L,l) and each subdomain Ω₁ is described by a cellular automata model CA_{106 i} and a cell state α_{106 i} by the following mathematical expression:

Ω(CA_Ω,α_Ω)=Ω₁(CA_Ω1,α_Ω1)+Ω₂(CA_Ω2,α_Ω2)+L+Ω_i(CA_Ωi,α_Ωi)+L+Ω₁(CA_Ω1,α_Ω1)   (1)

where Ω₁ denotes an ith subdomain of the global design space Ω, α_Ωi denotes a cell state of the ith subdomain, CA_Ωi is the cellular automata model of the ith subdomain, which is consisted of a current cell and its neighboring cells thereof, and the cell type maybe one-dimensional cellular automata, two-dimensional cellular automata, and three-dimensional cellular automata.

As shown in FIG. 2, a jth cell state a α_{106 i,j} in the ith subdomain Ω₁ is described by the following equation:

$\begin{array}{cc}{\alpha }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}=\left\{\begin{array}{c}{\mathrm{Mat}}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}\\ S_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}\end{array}\right\}& \left(2\right)\end{array}$

in which, Mat_Ωi,j is a design variable (such as, part material) of a jth cell in the ith subdomain Ω_i; S_Ωi,j is a field variable (such as, part IED) of a jth cell in the ith subdomain Ω₁, calculated as follows:

$\begin{array}{cc}{S}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}=\frac{1}{{\hat{N}}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}+1}{\sum }_{n\in N_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}}\frac{U_{{\Omega }_{i,n}}}{t_{{\Omega }_{i,n}}·A_{{\Omega }_{i,n}}}& \left(3\right)\end{array}$

Wherein, U_Ωi,n is an internal energy of the nth cell in the ith subdomain Ω₁, t_Ωi,n and A_Ωi,n are respectively a thickness and a surface area of the nth cell in the ith subdomain Ω₁, N_Ωi,j is a set of the neighboring cells of the jth cell in the ith subdomain, Ω₁, S_{106 i,j} is a local IED of the jth cell in the ith subdomain Ω₁, namely, the field variable, and {circumflex over (N)}_Ωi,j denotes the number of cells in the collection.

• • S3: The process enters an outer loop, the finite element analysis software, such as LS-DYNA, Radioss, Abaqus or Ansys, is invoked to conduct a nonlinear dynamic crash simulation analysis, a cell IED and a constraint function value at a current design point are accessed from the simulation result, and a target cost is updated by a penalty function method according to an extent to which the current design point violates a constraint boundary;

A main purpose of the outer loop is to carry out finite element simulation analysis, calculate an output response, and update an TED and a target cost:

• • S3.1: The IED updating rule

To improve the stability for updating the cell material and avoid the oscillation in the outer loop, an IED S_Ωi,j^(k) is updated with the weighted IEDs of the last three iterations in the outer loop:

$\begin{array}{cc}\{\begin{array}{cc}{\hat{S}}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(1\right)}=S_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(1\right)},& k=1\\ {\hat{S}}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(2\right)}=\frac{1}{2}{S}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(1\right)}+\frac{1}{2}{S}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(2\right)},& k=2\\ {\hat{S}}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(k\right)}=\frac{1}{2}{S}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(k\right)}+\frac{1}{3}{S}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(k-1\right)}+\frac{1}{6}{S}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(k-2\right)},& k\ge 3\end{array}& \left(4\right)\end{array}$

• • S3.2: A target cost updating rule

When multiple performance constraint functions exist in the outer loop, a target cost updating rule is proposed based on the penalty function method, in which the penalty value of a target cost ΔC*^(k) is used to indicate an extent to a current design point violating the constraint boundary in the kth outer loop and then the target cost is updated in the kth outer loop. The penalty value of the target cost ΔC*^(k) is calculated as follows:

$\begin{array}{cc}\Delta C^{*\left(k\right)}=\min \left(\max \left(K_q{C}^{*\left(0\right)}{\delta }^{\left(k\right)},-\Delta C\right),\Delta C\right)& \left(5\right)\end{array}$ $\begin{array}{cc}{\delta }^{\left(k\right)}=\sum _{i=1}^{n_g}\frac{O_i^{\left(k\right)}-O_i^{*}}{O_i^{*}}& \left(6\right)\end{array}$

in which, n_g is the number of constraint functions, K_q is a scale factor of the penalty value of the target cost, O_i^(k) is a response of the ith constraint function in the kth outer loop, O_i* is a specified boundary condition of the ith constraint function, δ^(k) is a relative deviation between n_g constraint functions and a specified boundary condition, C*⁽⁰⁾ denotes an initial total cost of thin-walled frame structures, ΔC denotes a maximum penalty of the target cost.

Then a target cost C*^(k) in the kth outer loop is updated by the following equation:

C* ^(k)=min(C*^(k−l)+ΔC*^(k),C*^(k′))   (7)

in which, k′ denotes the position of the last feasible solution in the outer loop iterations. If there is no feasible solution in the outer loop iterations until current design point, k′ will vanish (k′=0).

To improve the convergence efficiency of the M-SHCA. algorithm, p_f is defined to indicate the iteration number for the consecutive infeasible solutions, of which an initial value is set to be zero; p_f* is defined to indicate the maximum iteration number for the consecutive infeasible solutions. If the current design point is a feasible solution during iterations, p_f=0; if the current design point is an infeasible solution, p_f=p_f+1. If the iteration number for the consecutive infeasible solutions is greater than the maximum iteration number for the consecutive infeasible solutions (p_f>p_f*), the M-SHCA algorithm will be convergent and the iterations of the M-SHCA algorithm will be terminated.

• • S4: The process enters an inner loop, and the following steps are performed:
  • S4.1: A step target internal energy density function (step IED target, SIED*) is constructed, and a target internal energy density is updated;

As shown in FIG. 3, a so-called horizontal IED target (HIED*) function is employed to update the cell material which will keep increasing to an upper limit for the cells in the high IED subdomains or decreasing to a lower limit for the cells in the low IED regions. However, the IEDs in the whole design space are still very difficult to converge to HIED*. So, we construct a step IED target (SIED*) function with the IED targets of different subdomains calculated adaptively by the cells' IED distribution. Specifically, according to the cells' IED distribution, multiple “step points” and “step intervals” are adaptively defined and a reasonable IED target is calculated for each “step interval”, in which the cell material is updated by the SIED* function, and the searching robustness of the global optimal solution is improved.

A side collision simulation of car body frames is employed to exemplify the construction and the updating rule of the SIED* function:

• • S4.1.1: Cell index definition

An index id of the cell Ω_i,j with its subscripts i and j is defined by equation (8), that is, id is a function about the subscripts i and j of the cell Ω_i,j, and then S_id(i,j)^(k)=S_{106 i,j}^(k),

id(i,j)={circumflex over (N)}_Ωi−1*(i−1)+j, (j∈[1,{circumflex over (N)}_Ωi], {circumflex over (N)}_Ω0=0)   (8)

in which, {circumflex over (N)}_Ωi−1 is the number of cells in the (i−1)th subdomain. A specific case about the cell index definition is given in TABLE 1.

TABLE 1
Correspondence relationship between the cell Ωi, j and its index
Cell	Ω1, 1	Ω1, 2	Ω1, 3	Ω1, 4	Ω2, 1	Ω2, 2	Ω3, 1	. . .	Ω11, 1	Ω12, 1	Ω13, 1	Ω14, 1
Index	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	. . .	21	32	33	34

• • S4.1.2: All cells are traversed, and the differences between the IED S_id^(k) of each cell and an average IED S^(k) of all cells in the kth outer loop are calculated:

ΔS_id^(k)=S_id^(k)−S^(k)   (9)

where,

${\stackrel{\_}{S}}^{\left(k\right)}=\frac{1}{\sum _{i=1}^l{\hat{N}}_{{\Omega }_i}}\sum _{i=1}^l\sum _{j=1}^{{\hat{N}}_{{\Omega }_i}}{S}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(k\right)}$

is an average IED of all cells in the kth outer loop,

• • S4.1.3: Determination of “step points” and “step ranges”

All cells are traversed to judge whether equation (10) is satisfied. A subscript id of ΔS_id^(k) is defined as a “step point” and denoted as id_i if equation (10) is satisfied. The m “step points” determined by equation (10) can construct m+1 “step ranges” denoted as [id_i−1, id_i], where

$i=1,\dots ,m+1,i{d}_0=1,{\mathrm{id}}_{m+1}\sum _{i=1}^l{\hat{N}}_{{\Omega }_i}.$ ΔS_id^(k)*ΔS_id+1^(k)<0   (10)

• • S4.1.4: Update of “step points” and “step ranges”

A width threshold of the “step range” is defined as H_threshold. All “step ranges” are traversed. to judge whether equation (11) is satisfied. If equation (11) is satisfied (that is, the width of “step range” [id_i−1, id_i] is very small), the “step points” are deleted and the “step ranges” are updated in the following manner: when i=1, a “step point” id₁ is deleted, the “step range” is updated from [id₀,id₁] to [id₀,id₂]; when i>1, a “step point” id_i−1 is deleted, and the “step range” is updated from [id_i−1,id_i] to [id_i−2,id_i]. The original “step points” and “step ranges” are retained if equation (11) is not satisfied. If the number of the updated “step points” is m′, the number of the updated “step ranges” is m′+1.

id_i+1−id_i+1<H_threshold   (11)

• • S4.1.5: A step target IED function is constructed as follows:

$\begin{array}{cc}{S}^{*\left(h,k\right)}=\{\begin{array}{c}{S}_1^{*\left(h,k\right)},1\le \mathrm{id}\le {\mathrm{id}}_1\\ S_2^{*\left(h,k\right)},{\mathrm{id}}_1\le \mathrm{id}\le {\mathrm{id}}_2\\ \dots \\ S_i^{*\left(h,k\right)},{\mathrm{id}}_{i-1}\le \mathrm{id}\le {\mathrm{id}}_i\\ \dots \\ S_{m^{\prime }}^{*\left(h,k\right)},{\mathrm{id}}_{m^{\prime }-1}\le \mathrm{id}\le {\mathrm{id}}_{m^{\prime }}\\ S_{m^{\prime }+1}^{*\left(h,k\right)},{\mathrm{id}}_{m^{\prime }}\le \mathrm{id}\le \sum _{i=1}^l{\hat{N}}_{{\Omega }_i}\end{array}& \left(12\right)\end{array}$

where, S_i*^(h,k) is a target IED in the “step range”[id_i−1,id_i] in the kth outer loop and the hth inner loop.

• • S4.1.6: Update of the step target IED function

To achieve the specified target mass in the outer loop, a target IED of each “step range” in the inner loop is updated according to equation (13):

$\begin{array}{cc}{S}_l^{*\left(h+1,k\right)}=S_l^{*\left(h,k\right)}\frac{C^{\left(h,k\right)}}{C^{*\left(k\right)}}& \left(13\right)\end{array}$

where, C*^(k) denotes a target cost updated in the kth outer loop, C^(h,k) denotes a current cost updated in the kth outer loop and the hth inner loop. An initial target IED S_i*^(0,k) of each “step range” when the process enters the inner loop is calculated by equation (14):

$\begin{array}{cc}{S}_i^{*\left(0,k\right)}=\{\begin{array}{c}{\stackrel{\_}{S}}_i^{\left(k\right)},{\stackrel{\_}{S}}_i^{\left(k\right)}\ge {\stackrel{\_}{S}}_{}^{\left(k\right)}*V_{\mathrm{threshold}}\\ {\stackrel{\_}{S}}_{}^{\left(k\right)},{\stackrel{\_}{S}}_i^{\left(k\right)}<{\stackrel{\_}{S}}_{}^{\left(k\right)}*V_{\mathrm{threshold}}\end{array}& \left(14\right)\end{array}$

Where, V_threshold is a target IED threshold coefficient in the “step range”, S^(k) is an average IED of all cells in the kth outer loop; S_i^(k) is an average IED of all cells in the “step range” [id_i−1,id_i] (i=1, . . . , m=1), obtained by equation (15):

$\begin{array}{cc}{\stackrel{\_}{S}}_i^{\left(k\right)}=\frac{1}{{\mathrm{id}}_{i+1}-{\mathrm{id}}_i+1}\sum _{i\text{'}={\mathrm{id}}_l}^{{\mathrm{id}}_{i+1}}{S}_{i\text{'}}^{\left(k\right)}& \left(15\right)\end{array}$

A schematic diagram of the step target IED function constructed by the above steps is shown in FIGS. 4A-4B. A step target IED function of H_threshold=0 and V_threshold=1 is shown. in FIG. 4A, and a step target IED function of H_threshold=3 and V_threshold=1 is shown in FIG. 4B.

• • S4.2: Cell material updating rule based on a PID control strategy

A cell material updating rule with a certain control strategy is to make a current cost in the inner loop converged to a target cost. The larger the flow stress of the cell material, the more difficult thin-walled frame structure is to deform in the local region, and the smaller its IED. Conversely, the smaller the flow stress of the cell material, the more easily thin-walled frame structure is to deform in the local region, and the larger its IED. A current IED of each cell is compared with the value of the SIED* function to make the current cost of the inner loop converge to the target cost: if the cell IED is lower than the SIED*, the cell material should be changed to the material with a lower flow stress.

The energy absorption capacity of thin-walled frame structures is dependent of the geometrical characteristics and material properties, in which, the key indicators affecting material properties include yield strength, tensile strength, hardening index and so on. The flow stress calculated by equation (16) can be generally employed to measure the overall material strength, which is adopted as a basis to select material.

$\begin{array}{cc}{\sigma }_f=\sqrt{\frac{{\sigma }_y{\sigma }_u}{1+n}}& \left(16\right)\end{array}$

where, σ_y is a yield strength, σ_u is a tensile strength, and n=0.1 is a hardening index.

Since body material is a discrete variable, its optimization design belongs to the optimization problem with discrete variable. In addition, a specified material normally has an assured combination of different material parameters. Therefore, large amount of complex relationships among material parameters would also be introduced, which would no doubt lead to a high computational complexity of the optimization problems. To handle the difficulties mentioned above, A so-called nominal flow stress (continuous variable) is defined and updated by equations (17)-(20), which is compared with the actual flow stress of the candidate material in turn. Then the candidate material, of which the actual flow stress is closest to the nominal flow stress, is selected as the material of current cell. Finally, the material parameters of the current cell are replaced by the mechanical parameters of the selected material, i.e., density, elastic modulus, yield stress and so on.

The specific steps of cell material update are listed as follows:

• • S4.2.1: Definition of candidate material library and nominal flow stress

A candidate material library of l (l≥2) materials is defined as follows:

$\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{Mat}=\left\{\mathrm{Mat}\left(1\right),L,\mathrm{Mat}\left(s\right),L,\mathrm{Mat}\left(l\right)\right\},1\le s\le l\\ =\left\{\left({\rho }_1,E_1,{\sigma }_{yi},{\sigma }_{u1},{\sigma }_{f1},L\right),L,\left({\rho }_s,E_s,{\sigma }_{\mathrm{ys}},{\sigma }_{\mathrm{us}},{\sigma }_{\mathrm{fs}},L\right)L,\left({\rho }_l,E_l,{\sigma }_{yl},{\sigma }_{ul},{\sigma }_{\mathrm{fl}}L\right)\right\}\end{array}$

Where,

${\sigma }_{\mathrm{fx}}=\sqrt{\frac{{\sigma }_{\mathrm{ys}}{\sigma }_{\mathrm{us}}}{1+n}}$

is a flow stress of the sth material in the candidate library, ρ_s is a material density of the sth material in the candidate library, and E_s is an elastic modulus of the sth material in the candidate library.

To solve the discrete optimal problems of body materials, we define a nominal flow stress, which is a positive non-physical parameter.

• • S4.2.2: The nominal flow stress for current cells is updated by equation (17):

$\begin{array}{cc}{\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h+1,k\right)}=\{\begin{array}{cc}{\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\min },& {\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h,k\right)}+\Delta {\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h,k\right)}<{\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\min }\\ \text{?}+\Delta {\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{l,j}}^{\prime \left(h,k\right)},& {\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{l,j}}^{\min }\le {\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{l,j}}^{\prime \left(h,k\right)}+\Delta {\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h,k\right)}\le {\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\max }\\ {\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\max },& {\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h,k\right)}+\Delta {\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{l,j}}^{\prime \left(h,k\right)}>{\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\max }\end{array}& \left(17\right)\end{array}$ $\text{?}\text{indicates text missing or illegible when filed}$

in which, σ_Ωi,j′^(h,k) is a nominal flow stress of the jth cell in the hth inner loop and the kth outer loop, σ_Ωi,j′^(h+1,k) is a nominal flow stress of the jth cell in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop, σ_Ωi,j^min and σ_Ωi,j^max are respectively a minimize and a maximum value of the actual flow stress of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω_i, Δσ_Ωi,j′^(h,k) is a nominal flow stress variation of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω_i in the hth inner loop and the kth outer loop:

Δσ_Ωi,j′^(h,k)=(σ_Ωi,j^max−σ_Ωi,j^min)f(e_Ωi,j^(h,k))  (18)

where e_Ωi,j^(h,k) denotes a difference between the current IED S_Ωi,j^(k) and the target IED S_m′*^(h,k) as follows

$\begin{array}{cc}{e}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h,k\right)}=\frac{S_{{\Omega }_{l,j}}^{\left(k\right)}-S_{m^{\prime }}^{*\left(h,k\right)}}{S_{m^{\prime }}^{*\left(h,k\right)}}& \left(19\right)\end{array}$

f(e_Ωi,j^(h,k)) is a PID control function for updating the nominal flow stress, which integrates the advantages of the proportional control, integral control and derivative control to improve the control performance:

$\begin{array}{cc}f\left(e_{{\Omega }_{l,j}}^{\left(h,k\right)}\right)=K_p{e}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h,k\right)}+K_i\left[\text{?}+\sum _{\tau =1}^{k-1}\text{?}\right]+K_d\left[e_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h,k\right)}-e_{{\Omega }_{l,j}}^{\left(k-1\right)}\right]& \left(20\right)\end{array}$ $\text{?}\text{indicates text missing or illegible when filed}$

where, K_p is a proportional control coefficient, K_i is an integral control coefficient, K_d is a differential control coefficient, e_Ωi,j^(r) is a relative deviation item of the rth outer loop, e_{Ωdi i,j}^(k−1) is a relative deviation item of the (k−1)th outer loop.

• • S4.2.3: The nominal flow stress is compared with the actual flow stress of each material in the candidate material library and the candidate material of which the actual flow stress is closest to the nominal flow stress is selected as the material of the current cell (“selected material” for short):

$\begin{array}{c}\left(21\right)\end{array}$ $\{\begin{array}{c}{\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h+1,k\right)}-{\sigma }_{\mathrm{fp}}=\min \left({\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{l,j}}^{\prime \left(h+1,k\right)}-{\sigma }_{f1},L,{\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h+1,k\right)}-{\sigma }_{\mathrm{fs}},L,{\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\prime \left(h+1,k\right)}-{\sigma }_{\mathrm{fl}}\right)\\ {\sigma }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h+1,k\right)}={\sigma }_{\mathrm{fp}}\\ {\mathrm{Mat}}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h+1,k\right)}=\mathrm{Mat}\left(p\right)\end{array}$

in which, p denotes a position of the selected material in the candidate material library, σ_fp is an actual flow stress of the selected material, σ_Ωi,j^(h+1,k) is an actual flow stress of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω_i in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop, Mat(p) denotes a selected material. Mat_Ωi,j^(h+1,k) denotes a selected material of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω_i in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop.

• • S4.2.4: Cell material properties are replaced by the selected material properties

Material properties of a cell are replaced by the selected material properties mentioned above by equation (22):

$\begin{array}{cc}\left(\begin{array}{c}{\rho }_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h+1,k\right)}\\ \text{?}\\ {\sigma }_{y,{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h+1,k\right)}\\ {\sigma }_{u,{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h+1,k\right)}\\ \text{?}\\ L\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{c}{\rho }_p\\ E_p\\ {\sigma }_{\mathrm{yp}}\\ {\sigma }_{\mathrm{up}}\\ {\sigma }_{\mathrm{fp}}\\ L\end{array}\right)& \left(22\right)\end{array}$ $\text{?}\text{indicates text missing or illegible when filed}$

where, ρ_Ωi,j^(h+1,k) is a material density jth cell in the subdomain Ω_i in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop, E_Ωi,j^(h+1,k) is an elastic modulus of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω_i in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop, σ_y,Ωi,j^(h+1,k) is a yield stress of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω_i in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop, σ_u,Ωi,j^(h+1,k) is a tensile strength of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω_i in the (h+1) inner loop and the kth outer loop, and (σ_f,Ωi,j^(h+1,k) is a flow stress of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω_i in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop; ρ_p is a material density of the selected material, E_p is an elastic modulus of the selected material, σ_yp is a yield stress of the selected material, σ_up is a tensile strength of the selected material, and σ_fp is a flow stress of the selected material.

According to the above steps, a cell cost C_Ωi,j^(h+1,k) can be calculated as follows:

C _{Ω i,j} ^(h+1,k)=ξ_Ωi,j^(h+1,k)ρ_Ωi,j^(h+1,k)t_Ωi,jA_Ωi,j   (23)

where, C_Ωi,j^(h+1,k) is a cost of the selected material of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω_i in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop, ξ_Ωi,j^(h+1,k) is a price of the selected material of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω_i in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop, and ρ_Ωi,j^(h+1,k) is a density of the selected material of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω_i in the (h+1)th inner loop and the kth outer loop; t_Ωi,j is a thickness of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω_i and A_Ωi,j is an area of the jth cell in the subdomain Ω_i.

• • S4.3: The process returns to S4.1 if the convergence condition of the inner loop is not satisfied or exists the inner loop and continue to S5.

The convergence condition of the inner loop is:

|C^(h,k)−C*^(k)|<ε_i or k_i≥k_1max  (24)

where,

$C^{\left(h,k\right)}=\sum _{i=1}^l\sum _{j=1}^N{C}_{{\Omega }_{i,j}}^{\left(h,k\right)}$

denotes a total cost in the kth outer loop and the hth inner loop, C*^(k) is a target cost defined in the kth outer loop, ε₁ is a cost convergence factor, k₁ denotes the number of iterations in the inner loop, and k_1max denotes a maximum number of iterations in the inner loop.

• • S5: The optimal results are written out if the global convergence conditions in the outer loop are satisfied or the M-SHCA algorithm returns to S3.

The M-SFICA algorithm will be terminated if one of the following three convergence conditions is satisfied:

• • (1) The number of iterations k (namely, the number of finite element simulation analyses) in the outer loop exceeds a user defined a maximum number of iterations k_max.
  • (2) p_f>p_f* and a current design point is a feasible solution, in which P_f denotes the number of iterations where infeasible solutions continuously appear and p_f* denotes a maximum number of iterations where infeasible solutions continuously appear.
  • (3) The difference of design variables between two iterations is very small, namely:

$\sum _{i=1}^N❘\text{?}-\text{?}❘<{\epsilon }_2$ $\text{?}\text{indicates text missing or illegible when filed}$

in which, N is the total number of cells, and ε₂ represents a global convergence factor.

Embodiment

To verify the convergence and efficiency of the M-SHCA algorithm, it is employed to optimize the material distribution and cost of a car body frame under side collisions. The total weight of the full-vehicle crash FE model is 1346 kg including 276838 elements and 284961 nodes, in which body in white (BIW) adopts the shell elements and engine, gearbox, suspension system, etc. adopt the solid elements. The piecewise elastoplastic materials are used for the deformable structures and the rigid materials are adopted for the undeformable structures. The automatic single surface, automatic surface to surface, automatic node to surface algorithms are defined for the possible contact positions during side collisions. According to the requirements of the regulation titled “The protection of the occupants in the event of a lateral collision” (GB 20071-2006), a mobile deformable barrier (MDB) with a weight of 950 kg should hit a target vehicle perpendicularly at an initial velocity of 50 km/h, as shown in FIG. 5.

Step 1: Definition of the Subdomain CA Model and Design Variable

During the vehicle side collisions, B-pillar, sill, doors, and roof middle crossbeam appear large deformation which are the main energy absorbing structures and A-pillar, roof rail, seat crossbeam, and roof crossbeam are the main structures to transfer impact loading. Therefore, the material of 34 parts of 14 assemblies, such as the A-pillar, B-pillar, sill, roof rail, front and rear doors, rear side member, seat crossbeam, and roof crossbeam are defined as the design variables,

The detailed steps to define the subdomain. CA model for the car body beam frame are provided as follows:

• • Step (1): Subdomain fragmentation: the design space is fragmented into several independent subdornains denoted as Ω₁ based on the topological connection characteristics of the car body frame structure. For example, the assemblies such as A-pillar, B-pillar, and sill, are respectively defined as a subdomain Ω₁, a subdomain Ω₂, and a subdomain Ω₃, as shown in FIG. 6.
  • Step (2): Cell definition: Each component is defined as a cell Ω_i,j in the subdomain Ω₁(i=1,2,L,l), where the subscript i of Ω_i,j denotes an index of the ith subdomain, and the subscript j denotes a location of current cell in the ith subdomain. The subscripts j of each cell Ω_i,j are sequentially numbered from small to large according to principles of from inside to outside, from front to back, and from bottom to top.
  • Step (3): Cell state variable definition: The design variables (e.g. material) and field variables (e.g. IEDs) are sequentially defined for each cell.
  • Step (4). cell neighborhood definition: All subdomains are traversed, for cells in the same subdomain, the neighboring cells of the current cell are determined according to orders of subscripts j, and a set of the neighboring cells of the current cell is referred to as the cell neighborhood. Three subdomains are defined in FIG. 6. All cells within the cell radius of r=1 from the center of the current cell are referred to as the neighboring cells of the current cell. The number of neighboring cells of a current cell Ω_1,2 is 2, ({circumflex over (N)}_Ω1,2=2) the number of neighboring cells of a current cell Ω_2,1 is 1 ({circumflex over (N)}_Ω2,1=1), and the number of neighboring cells of a current cell Ω_3,1 is 1 ({circumflex over (N)}_Ω3,1=1).

Following the above 4 steps, a total of 14 subdomains and a total of 34 thickness variables are defined for the car body beam frame model, as shown in TABLE 2. The material parameters of the candidate material library are listed in FIG. 7 and TABLE 3.

TABLE 2
The SCA model and the design variables of body beam frame
SCA	CA	Design variables
Name	Sy	Name	Symbol	Symbol	Initial
A-pillar	Ω1	A-pillar inner panel	Ω1, 1	Mat1	HC340
		A-pillar reinforcement#1	Ω1, 2	Mat2	B280VK
		A-pillar reinforcement#2	Ω1, 3	Mat3	HC340
		A-pillar outer panel	Ω1, 4	Mat4	HC420
B-pillar	Ω2	B-pillar inner panel	Ω2, 1	Mat5	DP980
		B-pillar reinforcement	Ω2, 2	Mat6	DP980
Sill	Ω3	Sill inner panel#1	Ω3, 1	Mat7	HC420
		Sill inner panel#2	Ω3, 2	Mat8	HC420
		Sill reinforcement	Ω3, 3	Mat9	HC420
Roof rail	Ω4	A-pillar roof rail#1	Ω4, 1	Mat10	B210P1
		A-pillar roof rail#2	Ω4, 2	Mat11	HC420
		B-pillar roof rail	Ω4, 3	Mat12	HC420
		C-pillar roof rail	Ω4, 4	Mat13	HC420
Front door	Ω5	Front door anti-collision	Ω5, 1	Mat14	HC340
		Front door anti-collision	Ω5, 2	Mat15	HC420
		Front door anti-collision	Ω5, 3	Mat16	HC340
		Front door inner panel	Ω5, 4	Mat17	HC420
Rear door	Ω6	Rear door anti-collision beam	Ω6, 1	Mat18	HC340
		Rear door anti-collision	Ω6, 2	Mat19	HC420
		Rear door anti-collision beam	Ω6, 3	Mat20	HC340
		Rear door inner panel	Ω6, 4	Mat21	HC420
		Rear door anti-collision beam	Ω6, 5	Mat22	HC340
		Rear door anti-collision	Ω6, 6	Mat23	HC420
		Rear door anti-collision beam	Ω6, 7	Mat24	HC340
		mounting panel#4
Rear side member	Ω7	Rear side member inner panel	Ω7, 1	Mat25	HC420
		Rear side member outer	Ω7, 2	Mat26	HC420
Seat crossbeam	Ω8	Seat crossbeam lining panel	Ω8, 1	Mat27	HC420
		Seat crossbeam	Ω8, 2	Mat28	HC420
Front side member	Ω9	Front side member rear	Ω9, 1	Mat29	HC420
Seat rear crossbeam	Ω10	Seat rear crossbeam	Ω10, 1	Mat30	HC420
Rear floor front	Ω11	Rear floor front crossbeam	Ω11, 1	Mat31	HC420
Roof front	Ω12	Roof front crossbeam	Ω12, 1	Mat32	HC420
Roof middle	Ω13	Roof middle crossbeam	Ω13, 1	Mat33	DP980
Roof rear crossbeam	Ω14	Roof rear crossbeam	Ω14, 1	Mat34	HC420

TABLE 3
Material parameters for the candidate material library
	Density	Elastic	Yield	Tensile	Hardening	Flow	Price
Material	(g/cm3)	modulus	strength	strength	Index	stress	(CNY/kg)
DC01	7.8	210	209	386	0.1	270.8	7
B170P1	7.8	210	221	470	0.1	307.3	8
B210P1	7.8	210	280	519	0.1	363.5	9
B280VK	7.8	210	363	632	0.1	456.7	10
HC340	7.8	210	398	809	0.1	541.0	11
HC420	7.8	210	550	935	0.1	683.7	12
980DP	7.8	210	720	1167	0.1	874.0	13
1180DP	7.8	210	1009	1167	0.1	1112.8	14
B1500HS	7.8	210	1122	1667	0.1	1304.0	15

Step 2: Definition of Output Response

In the side collisions simulation of the car body frame, B-pillar is a key component that resists excessive deformation of the body structure and reduces the speed of body intrusion, Excessive deformation of B-pillar will lead the body structure to invade a passenger compartment significantly while reducing the living space of the passenger compartment and causing crash injuries to the passenger. The soft -tissue organs such as heart and lungs of passenger are very sensitive to speed changing of the chest position, If the intrusion velocity is too high, the vital organs in chest will be damaged seriously. Therefore, the maximum intrusion amounts and maximum intrusion velocities of B-pillar corresponding to the chest and pelvic positions are respectively selected as the crashworthiness indexes and output responses under side collisions, which are denoted as d₁(Mat), v₁(Mat), d₂(Mat) and v₂(Mat), respectively. As depicted in FIG. 8, a measuring point of B-pillar corresponding to chest is the point A on the inner panel of B-pillar parallel to passenger's chest and a measuring point of B-pillar corresponding to pelvis is the point B on the inner panel of B-pillar parallel to passenger's pelvis.

Step 3: Definition of Optimization Formulation

In this embodiment, the total cost of 34 parts in TABLE 2 is used as the objective function in which the initial cost is CNY 1291. The maximum invasion amounts and maximum intrusion speeds corresponding to the measuring points at B-pillar (points A and B) are defined as the constraint functions, in which the maximum intrusions at points A and B are 204.70 mm of 270.30 mm, respectively; the maximum initial intrusion velocities at points A and B are 7.78 m/s and 7.85 m/s, respectively. To make the initial full vehicle model meet the requirements of GB 20071-2006, the maximum intrusion amount and the maximum intrusion velocity should be less than or equal to 180 mm and 7.50 m/s, respectively. The initial values and design goals of the output response of B-pillar corresponding to the chest and pelvic positions are shown in TABLE 4, and the corresponding optimization equation is given as follows:

$\begin{array}{cc}\{\begin{array}{cc}\min & \mathrm{Cos}t\left(\mathrm{Mat}\right)=\text{?}{\xi }_i{\rho }_i{t}_i{A}_i\\ s.t.& d_1\left(\mathrm{Mat}\right)\le 180\\ & d_2\left(\mathrm{Mat}\right)\le 180\\ & v_1\left(\mathrm{Mat}\right)\le 7.5\\ & v_2\left(\mathrm{Mat}\right)\le 7.5\\ & {\mathrm{Mat}}_i\in \left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{DC}01,B170P1,B210P1,B280\mathrm{VK},\mathrm{HC}340,\\ \mathrm{HC}420,980\mathrm{DP},1180\mathrm{DP},B1500\mathrm{HS}\end{array}\right)\\ & \mathrm{Mat}=\left(\text{?},\dots ,{\mathrm{Mat}}_i,\dots ,{\mathrm{Mat}}_{34}\right)\end{array}& \left(25\right)\end{array}$ $\text{?}\text{indicates text missing or illegible when filed}$

in which, ξ_i is price of the ith cell material, ρ_i is material density of the ith cell material, t_i is thickness of the ith cell, A_i is area of the ith cell, Mat_i is material number of the ith cell, and DC01, B170P1, B210P1, B280VK, HC340, HC420, 980DP, 1180DP, B1500HS are candidate materials in the material library.

TABLE 4
Output responses and design target
Responses	Symbol	Baseline design	Design target
Total cost of the 34 parts (CNY)	Cost(Mat)	1291	minimize
B-pillar maximum intrusion amount at chest	d1(Mat)	207.30	≤180
location (mm)
B-pillar maximum intrusion amount at pelvis	d2(Mat)	204.70	≤180
location (mm)
B-pillar maximum intrusion velocity at chest	v1(Mat)	7.78	≤7.5
location (m/s)
B-pillar maximum intrusion velocity at pelvis	v2(Mat)	7.85	≤7.5
location (m/s)

Step 4: Optimization Results and Discussion

The horizontal IED target (HIED*) function is commonly calculated by the conventional HCA method in each iteration of the inner loop to make the current cost of the inner loop converged to the target mass by updating material with the PID control strategy.

In this embodiment, the M-SHCA algorithm adopting the. HIED* function for cell material updating in the inner loop is referred to as “M-SHCA#1” and the M-SHCA algorithm adopting the SIED* function for cell material updating in the inner loop is referred to as “M-SHCA#2”. To validate the convergence and efficiency of T-SHCA#2, the optimization equation in Equation (25) is separately solved by T-SHCA#1, T-SHCA#2 and parallel EGO-PCEI. The optimization results and the FEAs' numbers of the three algorithms are compared. The detail parameters used by T-SHCA#1, T-SHCA#2 are listed in TABLE 5, while those of parallel EGO-PCEI are listed in TABLE 6.

TABLE 5
Parameters configuration for M-SHCA#1 and M-SHCA#2
Parameter name	Symbol	M-SHCA#1	M-SHCA#2
Total number of cells	N	34	34
Number of subdomains	l	14	14
Cell radius	r	1	1
Width threshold of “step interval”	Hthreshold	—	4
IED target threshold coefficient of “step interval”	Vthreshold	—	1.1
Proportional control coefficient of cell material	Kp	0.03	0.03
variation
Integral control coefficient of cell material variation	Ki	0.0001	0.0001
Differential control coefficient of cell material	Kd	0.0001	0.0001
variation
Scale factor of the penalty value of the target cost	Kq	0.15	0.15
Maximum penalty of target cost (CNY)	ΔC	35	35
Maximum iteration number for the consecutive	p*f	10	10
infeasible solutions
Maximum number of iterations in inner loop	k1max	2000	2000
Maximum number of iterations in outer loop	kmax	50	50
Inner loop convergence factor	ε1	0.001	0.001
Outer loop convergence factor	ε2	0.001	0.001

TABLE 6
Parameters configuration for parallel EGO-PCEI
	Parameter name	Symbol	Parameter value
	Number of design variables	Nv	34
	Number of initial samples	Ninitial	4
	Number of parallel calculations	Nparallel	4
	Maximum number of FEAs	MaxFEA	300

The iteration processes of M-SHCA#1 are illustrated in FIGS. 9A-9C, in which M-SHCA#1 converges after 23 iterations, an optimal solution is found in the 12th iteration, and a total of 23 FEAs are conducted. The iteration processes of M-SHCA#2 are illustrated in FIGS. 10A-10B, in which M-SHCA#2 converges after 18 iterations, an optimal solution is found in the 8th iteration, and a total of 18 FEAs are conducted. With the comparisons between FIGS. 9A-9C and FIGS. 10A-10B, M-SHCA#1 cannot find the global optimal solution, and it is very hard to decrease the total cost of body frame; M-SHCA#2 converges when its objective function quickly drops to CNY1101. The iteration processes of parallel EGO-PCEI are illustrated in FIGS. 11A-11B, in which the global optimal solution is found after 67 iterations and a total of 300 FEAs are conducted before converging. Table 7 lists the initial designs, the responses of the optimal solutions and the total number of FEAs when the responses of T-SHCA#1 , T-SHCA#2, and parallel EGO-PCEI converge to the optimal solutions. The computational resources and computational time spent by the three methods are compared in FIG. 12.

TABLE 7
Comparison between the initial design and the optimal solutions
	Initial	M-	M-	Parallel EGO-
	design	SHCA#1	SHCA#2	PCEI
Cost(Mat) (CNY)	1291	1142	1101	1051
d1(Mat) (mm)	207.30	168.3	176.20	177.20
d2(Mat) (mm)	204.70	179.4	180.00	177.50
v1(Mat) (m/s)	7.78	6.97	6.96	6.87
v2(Mat) (m/s)	7.85	7.33	7.28	6.74
Number of FEAs	—	12	8	271
when converging to
optimal solution
Total number of	1	23	18	300
FEAs
Number of CPUs	8	8	8	32
Total time	3	69	54	225
consumed (h)

With the comparison and analysis of FIGS. 9A-12 and TABLE 7, (1) M-SHCA#1 and M-SHCA#2 not only spend less computing resources, but also have higher optimization efficiency; (2) M-SHCA#1 is very easy to trap into a local optimal solution, but very hard to decrease the total cost of body frame; (3) M-SHCA#2 not only has a high optimization efficiency, but also a stronger capability for global searching and cost decreasing; (4) the global optimization precision of M-SHCA#2 is very close to that of parallel EGO-PCEI, but the optimization efficiency of M-SHCA#2 is obviously higher than that of parallel EGO-PCEI. In summary, M-SHCA#2 has higher global searching efficiency and numerical precision for solving the time-consuming nonlinear dynamic response optimization problems with multiple discrete variables and its effectiveness has been validated by engineering case.

The optimization effect of the M-SHCA algorithm based on the SIED* function (i.e. M-SHCA#2) is further discussed here. The total cost of 34 parts and the performance improvement percentage under side collisions before and after optimization as listed in Table 8, in which the optimal solution obtained by the M-SHCA algorithm has achieved a cost reduction effect of 14.72%, while d₁(Mat), d₂(Mat), v₁(Mat) and v₂(Mat) have reduced by 15.00%, 12.07%, 10.54%, and 7.26%, respectively. The proposed algorithm not only reduces the total cost of body frame to a large extent, but also significantly improves the safety of vehicle under side collisions.

TABLE 8
Performance improvement percentages before and after optimization
	Cost	d1	d2	v1	v2
	(Mat)	(Mat)	(Mat)	(Mat)	(Mat)
	(CNY)	(mm)	(mm)	(m/s)	(m/s)
Initial design	1291	207.30	204.70	7.78	7.85
Optimal solution	1101	176.20	180.00	6.96	7.28
Relative change rate (%)	−14.72%	−15.00%	−12.07%	−10.54%	−7.26%

The material distributions of the optimization solution and the initial body frame are compared in TABLE 9, in which the material of the optimal solution have been distributed more reasonably compared with the initial design; with the optimal material distribution for body frame, the side collision safety performance of body frame can be improved while the total cost of body frame can be greatly reduced. In other words, the multi-material body frame has a stronger potential to improve its crash safety and reduce its total cost than initial body frame with a small amount of materials.

TABLE 9
Material distribution of body frame before and after optimization
		Initial	Optimal
Name	Symbol	material	material
A-pillar inner panel	Mat1	HC340	DC01
A-pillar reinforcement#1	Mat2	B280VK	DC01
A-pillar reinforcement#2	Mat3	HC340	DC01
A-pillar outer panel	Mat4	HC420	DC01
B-pillar inner panel	Mat5	DP980	B1500HS
B-pillar reinforcement	Mat6	DP980	B1500HS
Sill inner panel#1	Mat7	HC420	1180DP
Sill inner panel#2	Mat8	HC420	B1500HS
Sill reinforcement	Mat9	HC420	HC420
A-pillar roof rail#1	Mat10	B210P1	DC01
A-pillar roof rail#2	Mat11	HC420	DC01
B-pillar roof rail	Mat12	HC420	DC01
C-pillar roof rail	Mat13	HC420	DC01
Front door anti-collision beam mounting	Mat14	HC340	B1500HS
panel#1
Front door anti-collision beam	Mat15	HC420	B1500HS
Front door anti-collision beam mounting	Mat16	HC340	B1500HS
panel#2
Front door inner panel reinforcement	Mat17	HC420	DC01
Rear door anti-collision beam mounting panel#1	Mat18	HC340	DC01
Rear door anti-collision beam#1	Mat19	HC420	DC01
Rear door anti-collision beam mounting panel#2	Mat20	HC340	DC01
Rear door inner panel reinforcement	Mat21	HC420	DC01
Rear door anti-collision beam mounting panel#3	Mat22	HC340	DC01
Rear door anti-collision beam#2	Mat23	HC420	DC01
Rear door anti-collision beam mounting panel#4	Mat24	HC340	DC01
Rear side member inner panel	Mat25	HC420	B280VK
Rear side member outer panel	Mat26	HC420	B280VK
Seat crossbeam lining panel	Mat27	HC420	B1500HS
Seat crossbeam	Mat28	HC420	B1500HS
Front side member rear section	Mat29	HC420	DC01
Seat rear crossbeam	Mat30	HC420	B210P1
Rear floor front crossbeam	Mat31	HC420	B170P1
Roof front crossbeam	Mat32	HC420	B170P1
Roof middle crossbeam	Mat33	DP980	B1500HS
Roof rear crossbeam	Mat34	HC420	DC01

From FIGS. 13A-13B, it is concluded that (1) the intrusion amounts and the intrusion velocity of the optimal solution are greatly improved compared with the initial design, (2) B-pillar and roof middle crossbeam have been strengthened in the optimal solution, of which the deformation modes have been significantly improved compared with the initial design.

From the discussion mentioned above, it is concluded that the M-SHCA algorithm based on the SIED* function have a higher efficiency of global searching than that based on the HIED* function for solving the large scale nonlinear dynamic responses structural optimization problems with many discrete design variables, So the M-SHCA algorithm based on the SIED* function can be employed to effectively solve the optimization problems including the intrusion amounts and the intrusion velocity constraints, specially the nonlinear dynamic structural optimization problems with large scale discrete design variables.

The described embodiment is a preferred embodiment of the present invention, but the present invention is not limited to the aforementioned embodiment. Any obvious improvements, substitutions or modifications that can be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the essential content of the present invention shall fall within the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A material-based subdomain hybrid cellular automata algorithm for solving material optimization of thin-walled frame structures, comprising the following steps: S1: establishing an initial crash finite element model, constructing a subdomain cellular automata model, defining material variables and field variables of the thin-walled frame structures, and employing the initial crash finite element model for material and cost optimization;S2: executing an outer loop: calculating a cell internal energy density and a constraint value at a current design point by finite element analysis and updating a target cost by a penalty function method according to an extent of the current design point violating a constraint boundary;S3: executing an inner loop with the following steps:S3.1: constructing a step internal energy density (IED) target (SIED*) function and updating a target IED;S3.2: updating a cell material by a material updating rule based on a proportional integral derivative (PID) control strategy;specifically: defining a candidate material library and a nominal flow stress of each material, updating a nominal flow stress of a current cell, comparing the nominal flow stress with a true flow stress of each material in the candidate material library, and selecting a candidate material closest to the nominal flow stress as a selected material of the current cell, replacing material parameters of the current cell with mechanical parameters of the selected material;S3.3: executing S4 and exiting an inner loop if the inner loop is convergent, otherwise returning to S3.1;S4: writing out optimal results if global convergence conditions in the outer loop are satisfied, otherwise returning to S2 for updating the cell material in the inner loop.

2. The material-based subdomain hybrid cellular automata algorithm for solving the material optimization of the thin-walled frame structures according to claim 1, wherein the candidate material library is defined as follows:

3. The material-based subdomain hybrid cellular automata algorithm for solving the material optimization of the thin-walled frame structures according to claim 1, wherein the nominal flow stress is a non-physical parameter, and the non-physical parameter is a positive real number.

4. The material-based subdomain hybrid cellular automata algorithm for solving the material optimization of the thin-walled frame structures according to claim 1, wherein the nominal flow stress of each cell is updated by a following equation:

5. The material-based subdomain hybrid cellular automata algorithm for solving the material optimization of the thin-walled frame structures according to claim 4, wherein the following equations are used to select the candidate material closest to the nominal flow stress as the selected material of the current cell by comparing the nominal flow stress with the true flow stress of each material in the candidate material library:

6. The material-based subdomain hybrid cellular automata algorithm for solving the material optimization of the thin-walled frame structures according to claim 1, wherein the following equation is employed to replace material parameters of the current cell with mechanical parameters of the selected material:

7. The material-based subdomain hybrid cellular automata algorithm for solving the material optimization of the thin-walled frame structures according to claim 1, wherein the global convergence conditions comprise: |C(h,k)−C*(k)|<ε1 or k1≥k1max wherein,