Efficiency of Abaqus2Matlab toolbox for structural optimization problems

In recent years, optimal structural design is one of the most interesting fields in the engineering science. With the development of the computational tools, many optimization methods have been proposed. This paper introduces an efficient toolbox namely Abaqus2Matlab which can be used for any structural optimization problem. This computational tool allows for automatic linking between Abaqus and Matlab, in terms of transferring data from Abaqus to Matlab and vice versa, and creating the necessary files for the optimization procedure. In the optimization problem, Abaqus plays the role of the solver, while Matlab plays the role of the optimizer. In order to demonstrate the efficiency of Abaqus2Matlab toolbox, an optimization procedure is employed to find the optimum sizing of the member cross sectional areas for the benchmark 10-Bar truss and 25-Bar truss problems. The results obtained from this method are validated with various studies from the literature.