Optimal design of flat structures for vibration suppression

This paper proposes optimal design of flat structures for vibration suppression in mechanical systems and architectures. A flat structure is modeled by the finite element method, and the thickness of each element is considered as a design variable. The H_∞ norm of the transfer function from disturbance sources to the output points where vibration should be suppressed, is adopted as the objective function to represent the magnitude of vibration transmission. The genetic algorithm is employed for computation of the optimal solution under a constraint of the total mass. An example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design method