A superelement formulation for the efficient layout design of complex multi‐component system

In view of the prohibited computing time and the complexity of design procedure, a superelement formulation (SEF) is proposed to deal with the simultaneous optimization of component placement and the framework topology. In the iterative design process, each component is modelled as a movable superelement so that the sensitivity analysis with respect to the location design variables can be largely simplified by the SEF. Moreover, based on the Kuhn–Tucker optimality condition, two decomposition strategies are developed as variant approaches for the simultaneous design of multi‐component system. By means of numerical examples, these approaches are compared to show their capability and efficiency for the system compliance minimization.