4. Conclusions

Topological optimization is used every day in more and more applications in mechanics and physics in general.

In mechanical engineering, the most important applications are generally associated with reducing the weight of parts designed by additive manufacturing.

This is a major change for designers, as they no longer have to try and design the part themselves, but rather have to specify the specifications, and it's the algorithm that will draw optimal parts. In practice, for realistic 3D parts, this is neither obvious nor automatic, and there are many steps and verifications to be made before obtaining a design that is acceptable to the end-user and manufacturable.

In the case of mechanical design, the most common type of design, it is possible to list all the steps involved:

1/ Identify...