Crashworthiness analysis of bodies subjected to water impact based on topology optimization

In order to reduce impacting overloads, an alternative solution was to increase the crashworthiness of water-entry structure in the paper. Topology optimization of continuum structure was utilized to analyze the crashworthiness of water-entry bodies within non-regular design domain and the fixed loading surface. The topological optimization was based on the adoption of the SIMP approach and minimum compliance as the design objectives subjective to volume constrain. The initialization of variables was the ratio of material volume limited to the total volume; and the values of variables out of the design domain always evaluate zeros. In the end numerical examples of water-entry bodies were investigated based on the topology optimization method. And the water-entry axisymmetric bodies were applied to a cylinder, hemispheroid, and cone or wedge. The optimum models with actual loads presented and the SIMP models are proved to be reliable and practical at the conceptual design phase. It is most important reference for the conceptual models to later crashworthiness design of water-entry bodies.