Recent developments in shape sensitivity analyses: The physical approach

Because of increasing CAD requirements in industry, shape optimum design by finite element is an important field of research and development. The global solution of this problem involves two main aspects: the first one is the availability of powerful and robust optimizers and the second one is the necessity of producing the best sensitivity analysis for the approximate problem concerned by optimization. Nowadays, good softwares or computer programs are available in order to solve a well stated approximate optimization problem. For sensitivity analysis the method using big design elements is quite successful but it appears that more general and powerful methods could be implemented. It is expected that the physical approach developed in this paper could be one of these better methods of the future.