Physical and Genetic Mechanisms Guiding the Evolution and Development of Dendritic, Flapping Insect-Wings

Abstract

The project concerned the development of a novel design methodology for structural mechanics. The developed design methodology was inspired by the EvoDevo processes in biological evolution. Thus the methodology uses a cellular division process or branch growth model to define the development of the topology of the structure. With the topology in place, a physico-mathematical model is used to determine the fitness of the design generated by the developmental process. Then an evolutionary algorithm evolves the set of rules defining the development of the structure topology, and therefore the topology itself. The methodology developed, called bioTOM, has been assessed in a number of test cases, ranging from classic benchmark problems, to realistic design problems. From the solutions obtained in these studies, it can be concluded that bioTOM provides a significant improvement, both in efficiency and design performance, when compared with existing methodologies, including gradient based methods or evolutionary algorithms for topology optimization of structure topology.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 12, 2010
Accession Number
ADA523360

Entities

People

  • Marcelo H. Kobayashi
  • Marguerite A Butler

Organizations

  • University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aerospace Craft
  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Aircraft Equipment
  • Aircrafts
  • Algorithms
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Computational Science
  • Computer Programs
  • Elastic Properties
  • Evolutionary Algorithms
  • Genetic Algorithms
  • Geometry
  • Mechanics
  • Micro Air Vehicles
  • Optimization
  • Topology
  • Topology Optimization

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Graph Algorithms and Convex Optimization.
  • Neural Network Machine Learning.

Technology Areas

  • Biotechnology