Aiming at the limitation of theoretical formula design and the low efficiency of finite element method for multi-variable and multi-constraint optimization in spring optimization design
a two-step strategy for spring optimization considering section shape and geometry size is proposed. In the first step
geometry sizes of the spring is optimized with the helical spring theoretical formulae combined with the multi-start search algorithm. In the second step
a spring model considering cross-section shape is established by the finite element method. The optimal solution of geometry sizes is taken as the initial value
and the cross-section shape as well as geometry sizes are optimized by the zero-order method to acquire the optimal solution. Simulation results show that the two-step strategy can optimize the spring design by considering section shape and geometry size
expanding the design range of the spring. Compared with the results optimized directly based on FEM
the calculation time of the two-step optimization strategy is reduced by 55.86%
which shows that the two-step strategy is efficient to reduce the iterative number of FEM optimization. Optimization objective is increased by 14.31%
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