Topology Synthesis of Compliant Mechanisms using Cellular Automata

Cellular Automata (CA) models have been used to simulate complex biological and physical phenom-ena. In previous research, CA principles were applied to solve topology optimization problems using the Hybrid Cellular Automata (HCA) method. This method combines local evolutionary design rules with finite element analysis. Different control strategies, incorporated into the design rules, seek to minimize the error between a local mechanical signal and its optimum value. The HCA algorithm has demonstrated to be an efficient computational technique since optimal (black and white) topologies are obtained after a few iterations without checker-board patterns. With a change in the objective func-tion, the HCA algorithm was extended for topology synthesis of compliant mechanisms with trajectory constraints. Recently a methodology based completely on cellular automaton models was developed for structural analysis and design, where the evolutionary analysis rules are derived from the plain stress state equations and the design rules from the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions for structural topology optimization. The methodology has demonstrated that there is no need to use finite element analysis for solving topology optimization problems. This investigation concerns the extension this methodology to the synthesis of compliant mechanisms. The algorithm is applied to two dimensional models. The results are compared with the ones obtained using other approaches