See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/325082669

Topology Optimization of the Combustion Chamber of a Model Airplane

Conference Paper · January 2018

CITATIONS READS

0 483

2 authors:

Emadaldin Sh Khoram-Nejad Laleh Fatahi

Amirkabir University of Technology 13 PUBLICATIONS 133 CITATIONS
6 PUBLICATIONS 4 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Free Vibration of buckled structures View project

Call for papers: International Conference on Mechanics of Advanced Materials and Equipment (CMME2018), January 31st, 2018, Ahvaz, Iran. http://cmme2018.ir View
project

All content following this page was uploaded by Emadaldin Sh Khoram-Nejad on 11 May 2018.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Topology Optimization of the Combustion Chamber of a Model Airplane
Emadaldin S. Khoram Nejad1, Laleh Fatahi2

1 B.Sc. Student, Mechanical Engineering Department, Engineering Faculty, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz,
Ahvaz, Iran, emadaldin.sh.khoramnejad@gmail.com
2 Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering Department, Engineering Faculty, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz,
Ahvaz, Iran, lfatahi@scu.ac.ir

Corresponding author: Emadaldin S. Khoram Nejad, emadaldin.sh.khoramnejad@gmail.com

Copyright © 2018 The First International Conference on Mechanics of Advanced Materials and Equipment. All rights reserved.

Abstract
In recent years, the model airplanes have been used increasingly for many applications such as fire extinguishing or
spraying fertilizers on agricultural fields. The weight of the model airplane is an important parameter because light-weight
airplanes have an advantage of carrying more cargo. The purpose of this paper is to minimize the weight of the combustion
chamber of the model airplane engine by topology optimization. To this end, the finite element model of the cylinder
block is created and the von Mises stresses due to the combusting fuel are evaluated. Then, considering that the maximum
stress should not exceed a predefined value (based on the yield strength of the material and a safety factor), as well as
considering constant internal shape for some parts of the structure, the topology optimization is carried out using the solid
isotropic material with penalization (SIMP) to minimize the weight of the cylinder block. By doing so, the weight of the
cylinder block has decreased around 23% while the maximum von Mises stress has not been changed significantly
comparing to that of the initial design.

Keywords: Model Aircraft, Topology Optimization, Solid Isotropic Material with Penalization, von Mises
Stress

1. Introduction
A model airplane is a small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that mostly used for weather forecasting or spraying fertilizers
on agricultural lands. It is also utilized for fire extinguishing and even capturing aerial videos for commercial movies.
Depending on the mission of the model airplane, they have different speeds and powers with single cylinder to multi
cylinders and with two or four strokes. The weight of the model airplane is an important parameter because light-weight
airplanes have an advantage of carrying more cargo. Therefore, optimizing the weight of the combustion chamber of the
model airplane engine can enhance its cargo capacity. The structural optimization can be divided into three categories
including size optimization, shape optimization and topology optimization [1]. Figure 1 visually represents the idea
behind these optimization methods.

1
 Fig.1: Different approaches for the structural optimizations [1]

In the size optimization, the shape of the structure is known a priori but the optimum size of each component of the
structure can be found such that the objective criteria and constraints are met. In fact, the size optimization is carried out
by changing the size variables e.g. the cross-sectional area of trusses and frames, as depicted in Fig. (1-a). On the other
hand, the shape optimization is mostly employed for continuum structures where the boundaries of the structure are
changed to achieve the optimal model (See Fig. (1-b)). The third term, i.e. the topology optimization is employed to both
discrete and continuum structures. In case of discrete structures e.g. trusses and frames, the optimal design is found by
changing the spatial arrangement and connectivity of the components. For the continuum structure, however, the topology
optimization is more challenging and no idea of the final optimal design is known beforehand. In this approach, after
discretizing a continuum model into elements, the goal is to find those elements of the structure which can be removed
to minimize the weight and also to satisfy the constraints. This procedure is employed by considering the density of the
elements as the design variables and assigning a density of 0 or 1 to them, representing a void or a solid, respectively.
However, in case of large number of elements in the structure, the number of discrete design variables i.e. the elemental
densities, are very large and the optimization process would be every time consuming and ill-posed [2]. The most effective
and common approach to solve this problem is to define the material densities of the elements with continuous variables
having values between 0 and 1, in mathematical terms it is known as relaxation. Then, the densities are penalized to steer
the solution to discrete values of 0 or 1. This method is usually referred as the density method. Since the material properties
should be modelled in a continuous way, an interpolation procedure is required to express physical quantities, e.g. material
stiffness, as a function of the densities. To this end, the solid isotropic material with penalization (SIMP) is utilized [3].
The aim of the current research work is to use this approach to minimize the weight of the combustion chamber of a
model airplane and consequently increasing its cargo carrying capacity. The constraints of this optimization problem are
the maximum stress constraints and fixed shape for the internal parts of the engine.

2. Topology optimization using the SIMP method

The topology optimization in the current work is performed using the SIMP method. In this approach, the material density
of each element is defined as a design variable that varies continuously between 0 and 1, where 0, represents empty
element and 1, represents a solid one. Although based on the assumption that the stiffness of the material depends linearly
on the density, the intermediate densities have engineering intuitions, however, from the manufacturing point of view,

2
they are not meaningful and only solid or empty elements should exist in the optimal design. Therefore, the elements with
intermediate densities should be penalized somehow to force the optimal design to be represented only by densities of 0
or 1 for each element. The utilized penalization method based on the power law representation of elasticity properties [2]
is used in the current study as expressed in Eq. (1).

K e   eP K 0e (1)

in which K e and K 0e represent the penalized and the real stiffness matrices of the eth element, respectively, ρ is the
density and p is the penalization factor which is usually greater than 3 [4].
The optimization problem is described by Eq. (2)

 N

 min M    e Ve
 e 1

s.t.
 max  Const 1
 N N
(2)
 V d  V dinitial
 e  e


e 1
N
e 1
 Const 2

 
e 1
Vedinitial

As it is seen in Eq. (2), the goal is to minimize the mass, M, of a finite element model with N elements each having the

density of  e and the volume of Ve. On the other hand, the maximum von Mises stress should not exceed a specific

value, Const1 and the maximum percent change in the volume of the design parts was also constrained to be less than
Const2.

3. Results and discussion

In this section, the results obtained from the optimization problem of minimizing the weight of the combustion chamber
are reported. Figure 2 shows the initial design of the combustion chamber and its location in the engine assembly.

Fig. 2: Initial design of the combustion chamber (left) and its location in the engine assembly (right)

The objective of the optimization problem is to minimize the weight of the combustion chamber where the design
variables are the densities of the elements. The internal areas of the cylinder block and four screw locations have constant
shapes, i.e. they create some non-design bodies. The mechanical constraint is on the maximum von Mises stress that
should be lower than a specific value based on the material yield strength and a safety factor of 5. The maximum percent
change in total volume of the design parts is also set to be 75 %. The external pressure on the internal areas of the cylinder
block due to the steady pressure of the combusting fuel is assumed to be 1.5 MPa [5]. Moreover, the boundary condition
3
of 0 displacement is applied to the the screw locations. The mechanical properties of the combustion chamber are also
provided in Table 1.

Table 1: Material properties of the combustion chamber

Material Name Modulus of Elasticity Poisson’s Ratio Density Yield Strength

Steel s355 210 GPa 0.3 7850 kg/m3 335 MPa

To reduce the weight, one should search for those elements that have less contribution to the performance of the structure,
e.g. to the maximum von Mises stress, to remove them. This is done using the SIMP approach. Based on the obtained
densities for the elements, as shown in Fig. 3, after 8 iterations, the elements in blue have the lowest densities. Note that,
due to the symmetry of the model, the half of the model has been shown. We can now decide about removing the less
important material and redesign the combustion chamber to achieve a manufacturable product with less weight comparing
to the initial design. Fig. 4 shows the final design as well as the initial design.

Fig. 3: The contours of the elemental densities in different iterations of the optimization process

Fig. 4: Initial (left) and final (right) designs of the combustion chamber

The total weight of the initial and final models together with the maximum von Mises stress are reported in Table 2. It is
seen that in the final model around 23.17% weight reduction occurred comparing to the weight of the initial design. The
contours of the von Mises stress in the initial and final designs are also shown in Fig. 5.
4
 Table 2: Comparison of the initial and final models
Total Weight Maximum von Mises Stress

Initial Model 1.2829 Kg 34.29 MPa

Final Model 0.9856 Kg 33.34 MPa

Fig. 5: The contours of the von Mises stress in the initial design (left) and final design (right)

4. Conclusion
Since the weight of the model airplane is an important parameter that affects its cargo carrying capacity, this paper focused
on minimizing the weight of the combustion chamber of the model airplane engine using a topology optimization called
solid isotropic material with penalization. By applying the steady pressure due to the combusting fuel in the finite element
model of the combustion chamber, the resulting von Mises stresses were evaluated. Then, by considering that the
maximum von Mises stress should not exceed a predefined value and also limiting the percent change in the volume of
the design parts to 75%, the topology optimization was carried out to find which elements can be removed to minimize
the weight. Based on the result obtained in the optimization phase, a new design was suggested with 23.17 % reduction
in weight comparing to the initial design while the constraints were also satisfied.

Acknowledgment
The author would like to thank the Altair Hyperworks company for providing the geometry of model airplane engine in
their website.

References
[1] Olason, A., Tidman, D. Methodology for topology and shape optimization in the design process, Master’s Thesis,
Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, 2010.
[2] Bendsøe, M. P., Sigmund, O. Material interpolation schemes in topology optimization. Archive of applied mechanics,
69(9), 635-654, 1999.
[3] Bendsøe, M. P. Optimal shape design as a material distribution problem. Structural and multidisciplinary
optimization, 1(4), 193-202, 1989.

5
 [4] Rozvany, G.I., Lewiński, T.(Eds.). Topology optimization in structural and continuum mechanics, Vienna: Springer,
2014
[5] Sudhakar, K., Kumar, A. Advanced Internal Combustion Engines, BS Publication, 2014.

View publication stats