Comparison of Continuous and Discrete Adjoint Methods for Topology Optimization in Structural Dynamics

Semi-analytic adjoint methods can be seen as breakthrough for deterministic topology optimization in structural dynamics since such methods have reduced the computational costs. Nevertheless, the costs are still very high, so that further improvements are crucial. In this work, the concept of the continuous and the discrete adjoint method are applied in structural dynamics. Additionally, a modified discrete method, which is independent of the time discretization of the primal problem, is proposed. This approach results in further numerical savings, while the quality of the gradient does not suffer.