Exhaustive optimization of rib-stiffened, layered plate structures for acoustic response

A previously reported structural-acoustic frequency-domain formulation for layered, ribbed structures is used here as the basis for an approach to optimize these systems. We will review a previously reported singular perturbation approach to resolve convergence difficulties in both planar and cylindrical configurations, and discuss verification and validation. The significant successes of topological structural optimization for strength, weight, and efficiency are more challenging to repeat in coupled wave-bearing systems with many modes present. This is due, at least, to the difficulties of defining appropriate cost and regularization functions applicable across frequency ranges of interest and across the orders of magnitude of response characteristic of vibroacoustic systems. We discuss overcoming these difficulties by evading them entirely: the layered ribbed structural-acoustic model we use is sufficiently fast that sophisticated optimization algorithms are not required. To understand the dependence o...