Structural design utilizing updated, approximate sensitivity derivatives

A method to improve the computational efficiency of structural optimization algorithms is investigated. In this method, the calculations of 'exact' sensitivity derivatives of constraint functions are performed only at selected iterations during the optimization process. The sensitivity derivatives utilized within other iterations are approximate derivatives which are calculated using an inexpensive derivative update formula. Optimization results are presented for an analytic optimization problem (i.e., one having simple polynomial expressions for the objective and constraint functions) and for two structural optimization problems. The structural optimization results indicate that up to a factor of three improvement in computation time is possible when using the updated sensitivity derivatives.