The optimum structural design for a doubly-layered perforated plate with stiffeners

The doubly-layered perforated plate is an important component in nuclear reactors. In this paper the structure of the improved plate with stiffeners is discussed. To optimize it in view of a specific use, a study of structural optimization with the gradient projection method for nonlinear programming is proceeded. In this problem the design variables are the height of the surrounding shell and the thickness of both upper and lower plates, and the objective function is the weight of the total structure. The aim of the optimization is to search for the optimal design parameters at minimum objective function value under some inequality constraints. Among those constraints the most essential one is the restriction of the central deflection due to the pressure loading, which is solved by means of the finite element analysis. (orig.)