The objective of this paper is to introduce an efficient algorithm and implementation for large‐scale 3‐D topology optimization. The proposed algorithm is an extension of a recently proposed 2‐D topological‐sensitivity based method that can generate numerous pareto‐optimal topologies up to a desired volume fraction, in a single pass. In this paper, we show how the computational challenges in 3‐D can be overcome. In particular, we consider an arbitrary 3‐D domain‐space that is discretized via hexahedral/brick finite elements. Exploiting congruence between elements, we propose a matrix‐free implementation of the finite element method. The latter exploits modern multi‐core architectures to efficiently solve topology optimization problems involving millions of degrees of freedom. The proposed methodology is illustrated through numerical experiments; comparisons are made against previously published results.
