Papers › Topology Optimization under Uncertainty using a Stochastic Gradient-based Approach

Topology Optimization under Uncertainty using a Stochastic Gradient-based Approach

11 Feb 2019arXiv:1902.04562links table onlyarchive 2025-07-28

Subhayan De, Jerrad Hampton, Kurt Maute, Alireza Doostan

The archive published only this paper's code-link row. Authors, date and abstract are from arXiv's metadata (CC0), read from the Kaggle arXiv metadata snapshot of 2026-09-12 where its title matched the archive's; the title is the archive's.

Topology optimization under uncertainty (TOuU) often defines objectives and constraints by statistical moments of geometric and physical quantities of interest. Most traditional TOuU methods use gradient-based optimization algorithms and rely on accurate estimates of the statistical moments and their gradients, e.g., via adjoint calculations. When the number of uncertain inputs is large or the quantities of interest exhibit large variability, a large number of adjoint (and/or forward) solves may be required to ensure the accuracy of these gradients. The optimization procedure itself often requires a large number of iterations, which may render TOuU computationally expensive, if not infeasible. To tackle this difficulty, we here propose an optimization approach that generates a stochastic approximation of the objective, constraints, and their gradients via a small number of adjoint (and/or forward) solves, per iteration. A statistically independent (stochastic) approximation of these quantities is generated at each optimization iteration. The total cost of this approach is only a small factor larger than that of the corresponding deterministic TO problem. We incorporate the stochastic approximation of objective, constraints and their design sensitivities into two classes of optimization algorithms. First, we investigate the stochastic gradient descent (SGD) method and a number of its variants, which have been successfully applied to large-scale optimization problems for machine learning. Second, we study the use of the proposed stochastic approximation approach within conventional nonlinear programming methods, focusing on the Globally Convergent Method of Moving Asymptotes (GCMMA). The performance of these algorithms is investigated with structural design optimization problems utilizing a Solid Isotropic Material with Penalization (SIMP), as well as an explicit level set method.

PaperPDFCode

Code

CU-UQ/SGD mentioned on GitHubGPL-3.0 report

Repository list and official/mentioned flags are the archive's, frozen 2025-07-28. Reachability, where shown, is from one Syntology probe window (2026-09-16 to 2026-09-18); repositories not probed show nothing. GitHub stars are not tracked.

Code Syntology ran Syntology

Not run by Syntology. Nothing on this page verifies that the listed code works.

Results from the paper archive 2025-07-28

No leaderboard rows for this paper in the archive.

Report a problem or propose a change · a person checks every report against the paper or source before anything changes; decisions are listed on /corrections