@phdthesis{Mai, author = {Mai, Luu}, title = {Structural Control Systems in High-speed Railway Bridges}, issn = {1610-7381}, doi = {10.25643/bauhaus-universitaet.2339}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20141223-23391}, school = {Bauhaus-Universit{\"a}t Weimar}, pages = {147}, abstract = {Structural vibration control of high-speed railway bridges using tuned mass dampers, semi-active tuned mass dampers, fluid viscous dampers and magnetorheological dampers to reduce resonant structural vibrations is studied. In this work, the addressed main issues include modeling of the dynamic interaction of the structures, optimization of the parameters of the dampers and comparison of their efficiency. A new approach to optimize multiple tuned mass damper systems on an uncertain model is proposed based on the H-infinity optimization criteria and the DK iteration procedure with norm-bounded uncertainties in frequency domain. The parameters of tuned mass dampers are optimized directly and simultaneously on different modes contributing significantly to the multi-resonant peaks to explore the different possible combinations of parameters. The effectiveness of the present method is also evaluated through comparison with a previous method. In the case of semi-active tuned mass dampers, an optimization algorithm is derived to control the magnetorheological damper in these semi-active damping systems. The use of the proposed algorithm can generate various combinations of control gains and state variables. This can lead to the improvement of the ability of MR dampers to track the desired control forces. An uncertain model to reduce detuning effects is also considered in this work. Next, for fluid viscous dampers, in order to tune the optimal parameters of fluid viscous dampers to the vicinity of the exact values, analytical formulae which can include structural damping are developed based on the perturbation method. The proposed formulae can also be considered as an improvement of the previous analytical formulae, especially for bridge beams with large structural damping. Finally, a new combination of magnetorheological dampers and a double-beam system to improve the performance of the primary structure vibration is proposed. An algorithm to control magnetorheological dampers in this system is developed by using standard linear matrix inequality techniques. Weight functions as a loop shaping procedure are also introduced in the feedback controllers to improve the tracking ability of magnetorheological damping forces. To this end, the effectiveness of magnetorheological dampers controlled by the proposed scheme, along with the effects of the uncertain and time-delay parameters on the models, are evaluated through numerical simulations. Additionally, a comparison of the dampers based on their performance is also considered in this work.}, subject = {High-speed railway bridge}, language = {en} } @article{Zhang, author = {Zhang, Yongzheng}, title = {Nonlocal dynamic Kirchhoff plate formulation based on nonlocal operator method}, series = {Engineering with Computers}, volume = {2022}, journal = {Engineering with Computers}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {London}, doi = {10.1007/s00366-021-01587-1}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20220209-45849}, pages = {1 -- 35}, abstract = {In this study, we propose a nonlocal operator method (NOM) for the dynamic analysis of (thin) Kirchhoff plates. The nonlocal Hessian operator is derived based on a second-order Taylor series expansion. The NOM does not require any shape functions and associated derivatives as 'classical' approaches such as FEM, drastically facilitating the implementation. Furthermore, NOM is higher order continuous, which is exploited for thin plate analysis that requires C1 continuity. The nonlocal dynamic governing formulation and operator energy functional for Kirchhoff plates are derived from a variational principle. The Verlet-velocity algorithm is used for the time discretization. After confirming the accuracy of the nonlocal Hessian operator, several numerical examples are simulated by the nonlocal dynamic Kirchhoff plate formulation.}, subject = {Angewandte Mathematik}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Zhang, author = {Zhang, Yongzheng}, title = {A Nonlocal Operator Method for Quasi-static and Dynamic Fracture Modeling}, doi = {10.25643/bauhaus-universitaet.4732}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20221026-47321}, school = {Bauhaus-Universit{\"a}t Weimar}, abstract = {Material failure can be tackled by so-called nonlocal models, which introduce an intrinsic length scale into the formulation and, in the case of material failure, restore the well-posedness of the underlying boundary value problem or initial boundary value problem. Among nonlocal models, peridynamics (PD) has attracted a lot of attention as it allows the natural transition from continuum to discontinue and thus allows modeling of discrete cracks without the need to describe and track the crack topology, which has been a major obstacle in traditional discrete crack approaches. This is achieved by replacing the divergence of the Cauchy stress tensor through an integral over so-called bond forces, which account for the interaction of particles. A quasi-continuum approach is then used to calibrate the material parameters of the bond forces, i.e., equating the PD energy with the energy of a continuum. One major issue for the application of PD to general complex problems is that they are limited to fairly simple material behavior and pure mechanical problems based on explicit time integration. PD has been extended to other applications but losing simultaneously its simplicity and ease in modeling material failure. Furthermore, conventional PD suffers from instability and hourglass modes that require stabilization. It also requires the use of constant horizon sizes, which drastically reduces its computational efficiency. The latter issue was resolved by the so-called dual-horizon peridynamics (DH-PD) formulation and the introduction of the duality of horizons. Within the nonlocal operator method (NOM), the concept of nonlocality is further extended and can be considered a generalization of DH-PD. Combined with the energy functionals of various physical models, the nonlocal forms based on the dual-support concept can be derived. In addition, the variation of the energy functional allows implicit formulations of the nonlocal theory. While traditional integral equations are formulated in an integral domain, the dual-support approaches are based on dual integral domains. One prominent feature of NOM is its compatibility with variational and weighted residual methods. The NOM yields a direct numerical implementation based on the weighted residual method for many physical problems without the need for shape functions. Only the definition of the energy or boundary value problem is needed to drastically facilitate the implementation. The nonlocal operator plays an equivalent role to the derivatives of the shape functions in meshless methods and finite element methods (FEM). Based on the variational principle, the residual and the tangent stiffness matrix can be obtained with ease by a series of matrix multiplications. In addition, NOM can be used to derive many nonlocal models in strong form. The principal contributions of this dissertation are the implementation and application of NOM, and also the development of approaches for dealing with fractures within the NOM, mostly for dynamic fractures. The primary coverage and results of the dissertation are as follows: -The first/higher-order implicit NOM and explicit NOM, including a detailed description of the implementation, are presented. The NOM is based on so-called support, dual-support, nonlocal operators, and an operate energy functional ensuring stability. The nonlocal operator is a generalization of the conventional differential operators. Combining with the method of weighted residuals and variational principles, NOM establishes the residual and tangent stiffness matrix of operate energy functional through some simple matrix without the need of shape functions as in other classical computational methods such as FEM. NOM only requires the definition of the energy drastically simplifying its implementation. For the sake of conciseness, the implementation in this chapter is focused on linear elastic solids only, though the NOM can handle more complex nonlinear problems. An explicit nonlocal operator method for the dynamic analysis of elasticity solid problems is also presented. The explicit NOM avoids the calculation of the tangent stiffness matrix as in the implicit NOM model. The explicit scheme comprises the Verlet-velocity algorithm. The NOM can be very flexible and efficient for solving partial differential equations (PDEs). It's also quite easy for readers to use the NOM and extend it to solve other complicated physical phenomena described by one or a set of PDEs. Several numerical examples are presented to show the capabilities of this method. -A nonlocal operator method for the dynamic analysis of (thin) Kirchhoff plates is proposed. The nonlocal Hessian operator is derived from a second-order Taylor series expansion. NOM is higher-order continuous, which is exploited for thin plate analysis that requires \$C^1\$ continuity. The nonlocal dynamic governing formulation and operator energy functional for Kirchhoff plates are derived from a variational principle. The Verlet-velocity algorithm is used for time discretization. After confirming the accuracy of the nonlocal Hessian operator, several numerical examples are simulated by the nonlocal dynamic Kirchhoff plate formulation. -A nonlocal fracture modeling is developed and applied to the simulation of quasi-static and dynamic fractures using the NOM. The phase field's nonlocal weak and associated strong forms are derived from a variational principle. The NOM requires only the definition of energy. We present both a nonlocal implicit phase field model and a nonlocal explicit phase field model for fracture; the first approach is better suited for quasi-static fracture problems, while the key application of the latter one is dynamic fracture. To demonstrate the performance of the underlying approach, several benchmark examples for quasi-static and dynamic fracture are solved.}, subject = {Variationsprinzip}, language = {en} } @article{RabczukGuoZhuangetal., author = {Rabczuk, Timon and Guo, Hongwei and Zhuang, Xiaoying and Chen, Pengwan and Alajlan, Naif}, title = {Stochastic deep collocation method based on neural architecture search and transfer learning for heterogeneous porous media}, series = {Engineering with Computers}, volume = {2022}, journal = {Engineering with Computers}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {London}, doi = {10.1007/s00366-021-01586-2}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20220209-45835}, pages = {1 -- 26}, abstract = {We present a stochastic deep collocation method (DCM) based on neural architecture search (NAS) and transfer learning for heterogeneous porous media. We first carry out a sensitivity analysis to determine the key hyper-parameters of the network to reduce the search space and subsequently employ hyper-parameter optimization to finally obtain the parameter values. The presented NAS based DCM also saves the weights and biases of the most favorable architectures, which is then used in the fine-tuning process. We also employ transfer learning techniques to drastically reduce the computational cost. The presented DCM is then applied to the stochastic analysis of heterogeneous porous material. Therefore, a three dimensional stochastic flow model is built providing a benchmark to the simulation of groundwater flow in highly heterogeneous aquifers. The performance of the presented NAS based DCM is verified in different dimensions using the method of manufactured solutions. We show that it significantly outperforms finite difference methods in both accuracy and computational cost.}, subject = {Maschinelles Lernen}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Abeltshauser, author = {Abeltshauser, Rainer}, title = {Identification and separation of physical effects of coupled systems by using defined model abstractions}, doi = {10.25643/bauhaus-universitaet.2860}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20170314-28600}, school = {Bauhaus-Universit{\"a}t Weimar}, abstract = {The thesis investigates at the computer aided simulation process for operational vibration analysis of complex coupled systems. As part of the internal methods project "Absolute Values" of the BMW Group, the thesis deals with the analysis of the structural dynamic interactions and excitation interactions. The overarching aim of the methods project is to predict the operational vibrations of engines. Simulations are usually used to analyze technical aspects (e. g. operational vibrations, strength, ...) of single components in the industrial development. The boundary conditions of submodels are mostly based on experiences. So the interactions with neighboring components and systems are neglected. To get physically more realistic results but still efficient simulations, this work wants to support the engineer during the preprocessing phase by useful criteria. At first suitable abstraction levels based on the existing literature are defined to identify structural dynamic interactions and excitation interactions of coupled systems. So it is possible to separate different effects of the coupled subsystems. On this basis, criteria are derived to assess the influence of interactions between the considered systems. These criteria can be used during the preprocessing phase and help the engineer to build up efficient models with respect to the interactions with neighboring systems. The method was developed by using several models with different complexity levels. Furthermore, the method is proved for the application in the industrial environment by using the example of a current combustion engine.}, subject = {Strukturdynamik}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Schrader, author = {Schrader, Kai}, title = {Hybrid 3D simulation methods for the damage analysis of multiphase composites}, doi = {10.25643/bauhaus-universitaet.2059}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20131021-20595}, school = {Bauhaus-Universit{\"a}t Weimar}, pages = {174}, abstract = {Modern digital material approaches for the visualization and simulation of heterogeneous materials allow to investigate the behavior of complex multiphase materials with their physical nonlinear material response at various scales. However, these computational techniques require extensive hardware resources with respect to computing power and main memory to solve numerically large-scale discretized models in 3D. Due to a very high number of degrees of freedom, which may rapidly be increased to the two-digit million range, the limited hardware ressources are to be utilized in a most efficient way to enable an execution of the numerical algorithms in minimal computation time. Hence, in the field of computational mechanics, various methods and algorithms can lead to an optimized runtime behavior of nonlinear simulation models, where several approaches are proposed and investigated in this thesis. Today, the numerical simulation of damage effects in heterogeneous materials is performed by the adaption of multiscale methods. A consistent modeling in the three-dimensional space with an appropriate discretization resolution on each scale (based on a hierarchical or concurrent multiscale model), however, still contains computational challenges in respect to the convergence behavior, the scale transition or the solver performance of the weak coupled problems. The computational efficiency and the distribution among available hardware resources (often based on a parallel hardware architecture) can significantly be improved. In the past years, high-performance computing (HPC) and graphics processing unit (GPU) based computation techniques were established for the investigationof scientific objectives. Their application results in the modification of existing and the development of new computational methods for the numerical implementation, which enables to take advantage of massively clustered computer hardware resources. In the field of numerical simulation in material science, e.g. within the investigation of damage effects in multiphase composites, the suitability of such models is often restricted by the number of degrees of freedom (d.o.f.s) in the three-dimensional spatial discretization. This proves to be difficult for the type of implementation method used for the nonlinear simulation procedure and, simultaneously has a great influence on memory demand and computational time. In this thesis, a hybrid discretization technique has been developed for the three-dimensional discretization of a three-phase material, which is respecting the numerical efficiency of nonlinear (damage) simulations of these materials. The increase of the computational efficiency is enabled by the improved scalability of the numerical algorithms. Consequently, substructuring methods for partitioning the hybrid mesh were implemented, tested and adapted to the HPC computing framework using several hundred CPU (central processing units) nodes for building the finite element assembly. A memory-efficient iterative and parallelized equation solver combined with a special preconditioning technique for solving the underlying equation system was modified and adapted to enable combined CPU and GPU based computations. Hence, it is recommended by the author to apply the substructuring method for hybrid meshes, which respects different material phases and their mechanical behavior and which enables to split the structure in elastic and inelastic parts. However, the consideration of the nonlinear material behavior, specified for the corresponding phase, is limited to the inelastic domains only, and by that causes a decreased computing time for the nonlinear procedure. Due to the high numerical effort for such simulations, an alternative approach for the nonlinear finite element analysis, based on the sequential linear analysis, was implemented in respect to scalable HPC. The incremental-iterative procedure in finite element analysis (FEA) during the nonlinear step was then replaced by a sequence of linear FE analysis when damage in critical regions occured, known in literature as saw-tooth approach. As a result, qualitative (smeared) crack initiation in 3D multiphase specimens has efficiently been simulated.}, subject = {high-performance computing}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Nouri, author = {Nouri, Hamidreza}, title = {Mechanical Behavior of two dimensional sheets and polymer compounds based on molecular dynamics and continuum mechanics approach}, doi = {10.25643/bauhaus-universitaet.4670}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20220713-46700}, school = {Bauhaus-Universit{\"a}t Weimar}, pages = {152}, abstract = {Compactly, this thesis encompasses two major parts to examine mechanical responses of polymer compounds and two dimensional materials: 1- Molecular dynamics approach is investigated to study transverse impact behavior of polymers, polymer compounds and two dimensional materials. 2- Large deflection of circular and rectangular membranes is examined by employing continuum mechanics approach. Two dimensional materials (2D), including, Graphene and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), exhibited new and promising physical and chemical properties, opening new opportunities to be utilized alone or to enhance the performance of conventional materials. These 2D materials have attracted tremendous attention owing to their outstanding physical properties, especially concerning transverse impact loading. Polymers, with the backbone of carbon (organic polymers) or do not include carbon atoms in the backbone (inorganic polymers) like polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), have extraordinary characteristics particularly their flexibility leads to various easy ways of forming and casting. These simple shape processing label polymers as an excellent material often used as a matrix in composites (polymer compounds). In this PhD work, Classical Molecular Dynamics (MD) is implemented to calculate transverse impact loading of 2D materials as well as polymer compounds reinforced with graphene sheets. In particular, MD was adopted to investigate perforation of the target and impact resistance force . By employing MD approach, the minimum velocity of the projectile that could create perforation and passes through the target is obtained. The largest investigation was focused on how graphene could enhance the impact properties of the compound. Also the purpose of this work was to discover the effect of the atomic arrangement of 2D materials on the impact problem. To this aim, the impact properties of two different 2D materials, graphene and MoS2, are studied. The simulation of chemical functionalization was carried out systematically, either with covalently bonded molecules or with non-bonded ones, focusing the following efforts on the covalently bounded species, revealed as the most efficient linkers. To study transverse impact behavior by using classical MD approach , Large-scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator (LAMMPS) software, that is well-known among most researchers, is employed. The simulation is done through predefined commands in LAMMPS. Generally these commands (atom style, pair style, angle style, dihedral style, improper style, kspace style, read data, fix, run, compute and so on) are used to simulate and run the model for the desired outputs. Depends on the particles and model types, suitable inter-atomic potentials (force fields) are considered. The ensembles, constraints and boundary conditions are applied depends upon the problem definition. To do so, atomic creation is needed. Python codes are developed to generate particles which explain atomic arrangement of each model. Each atomic arrangement introduced separately to LAMMPS for simulation. After applying constraints and boundary conditions, LAMMPS also include integrators like velocity-Verlet integrator or Brownian dynamics or other types of integrator to run the simulation and finally the outputs are emerged. The outputs are inspected carefully to appreciate the natural behavior of the problem. Appreciation of natural properties of the materials assist us to design new applicable materials. In investigation on the large deflection of circular and rectangular membranes, which is related to the second part of this thesis, continuum mechanics approach is implemented. Nonlinear F{\"o}ppl membrane theory, which carefully release nonlinear governing equations of motion, is considered to establish the non-linear partial differential equilibrium equations of the membranes under distributed and centric point loads. The Galerkin and energy methods are utilized to solve non-linear partial differential equilibrium equations of circular and rectangular plates respectively. Maximum deflection as well as stress through the film region, which are kinds of issue in many industrial applications, are obtained.}, subject = {Molekulardynamik}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Jenabidehkordi, author = {Jenabidehkordi, Ali}, title = {An Efficient Adaptive PD Formulation for Complex Microstructures}, doi = {10.25643/bauhaus-universitaet.4742}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20221124-47422}, school = {Bauhaus-Universit{\"a}t Weimar}, pages = {118}, abstract = {The computational costs of newly developed numerical simulation play a critical role in their acceptance within both academic use and industrial employment. Normally, the refinement of a method in the area of interest reduces the computational cost. This is unfortunately not true for most nonlocal simulation, since refinement typically increases the size of the material point neighborhood. Reducing the discretization size while keep- ing the neighborhood size will often require extra consideration. Peridy- namic (PD) is a newly developed numerical method with nonlocal nature. Its straightforward integral form equation of motion allows simulating dy- namic problems without any extra consideration required. The formation of crack and its propagation is known as natural to peridynamic. This means that discontinuity is a result of the simulation and does not demand any post-processing. As with other nonlocal methods, PD is considered an expensive method. The refinement of the nodal spacing while keeping the neighborhood size (i.e., horizon radius) constant, emerges to several nonphysical phenomena. This research aims to reduce the peridynamic computational and imple- mentation costs. A novel refinement approach is introduced. The pro- posed approach takes advantage of the PD flexibility in choosing the shape of the horizon by introducing multiple domains (with no intersections) to the nodes of the refinement zone. It will be shown that no ghost forces will be created when changing the horizon sizes in both subdomains. The approach is applied to both bond-based and state-based peridynamic and verified for a simple wave propagation refinement problem illustrating the efficiency of the method. Further development of the method for higher dimensions proves to have a direct relationship with the mesh sensitivity of the PD. A method for solving the mesh sensitivity of the PD is intro- duced. The application of the method will be examined by solving a crack propagation problem similar to those reported in the literature. New software architecture is proposed considering both academic and in- dustrial use. The available simulation tools for employing PD will be collected, and their advantages and drawbacks will be addressed. The challenges of implementing any node base nonlocal methods while max- imizing the software flexibility to further development and modification will be discussed and addressed. A software named Relation-Based Sim- ulator (RBS) is developed for examining the proposed architecture. The exceptional capabilities of RBS will be explored by simulating three dis- tinguished models. RBS is available publicly and open to further develop- ment. The industrial acceptance of the RBS will be tested by targeting its performance on one Mac and two Linux distributions.}, subject = {Peridynamik}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Amiri, author = {Amiri, Fatemeh}, title = {Computational modelling of fracture with local maximum entropy approximations}, doi = {10.25643/bauhaus-universitaet.2631}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20160719-26310}, school = {Bauhaus-Universit{\"a}t Weimar}, pages = {130}, abstract = {The key objective of this research is to study fracture with a meshfree method, local maximum entropy approximations, and model fracture in thin shell structures with complex geometry and topology. This topic is of high relevance for real-world applications, for example in the automotive industry and in aerospace engineering. The shell structure can be described efficiently by meshless methods which are capable of describing complex shapes as a collection of points instead of a structured mesh. In order to find the appropriate numerical method to achieve this goal, the first part of the work was development of a method based on local maximum entropy (LME) shape functions together with enrichment functions used in partition of unity methods to discretize problems in linear elastic fracture mechanics. We obtain improved accuracy relative to the standard extended finite element method (XFEM) at a comparable computational cost. In addition, we keep the advantages of the LME shape functions,such as smoothness and non-negativity. We show numerically that optimal convergence (same as in FEM) for energy norm and stress intensity factors can be obtained through the use of geometric (fixed area) enrichment with no special treatment of the nodes near the crack such as blending or shifting. As extension of this method to three dimensional problems and complex thin shell structures with arbitrary crack growth is cumbersome, we developed a phase field model for fracture using LME. Phase field models provide a powerful tool to tackle moving interface problems, and have been extensively used in physics and materials science. Phase methods are gaining popularity in a wide set of applications in applied science and engineering, recently a second order phase field approximation for brittle fracture has gathered significant interest in computational fracture such that sharp cracks discontinuities are modeled by a diffusive crack. By minimizing the system energy with respect to the mechanical displacements and the phase-field, subject to an irreversibility condition to avoid crack healing, this model can describe crack nucleation, propagation, branching and merging. One of the main advantages of the phase field modeling of fractures is the unified treatment of the interfacial tracking and mechanics, which potentially leads to simple, robust, scalable computer codes applicable to complex systems. In other words, this approximation reduces considerably the implementation complexity because the numerical tracking of the fracture is not needed, at the expense of a high computational cost. We present a fourth-order phase field model for fracture based on local maximum entropy (LME) approximations. The higher order continuity of the meshfree LME approximation allows to directly solve the fourth-order phase field equations without splitting the fourth-order differential equation into two second order differential equations. Notably, in contrast to previous discretizations that use at least a quadratic basis, only linear completeness is needed in the LME approximation. We show that the crack surface can be captured more accurately in the fourth-order model than the second-order model. Furthermore, less nodes are needed for the fourth-order model to resolve the crack path. Finally, we demonstrate the performance of the proposed meshfree fourth order phase-field formulation for 5 representative numerical examples. Computational results will be compared to analytical solutions within linear elastic fracture mechanics and experimental data for three-dimensional crack propagation. In the last part of this research, we present a phase-field model for fracture in Kirchoff-Love thin shells using the local maximum-entropy (LME) meshfree method. Since the crack is a natural outcome of the analysis it does not require an explicit representation and tracking, which is advantageous over techniques as the extended finite element method that requires tracking of the crack paths. The geometric description of the shell is based on statistical learning techniques that allow dealing with general point set surfaces avoiding a global parametrization, which can be applied to tackle surfaces of complex geometry and topology. We show the flexibility and robustness of the present methodology for two examples: plate in tension and a set of open connected pipes.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Nanthakumar, author = {Nanthakumar, S.S.}, title = {Inverse and optimization problems in piezoelectric materials using Extended Finite Element Method and Level sets}, doi = {10.25643/bauhaus-universitaet.2709}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20161128-27095}, school = {Bauhaus-Universit{\"a}t Weimar}, abstract = {Piezoelectric materials are used in several applications as sensors and actuators where they experience high stress and electric field concentrations as a result of which they may fail due to fracture. Though there are many analytical and experimental works on piezoelectric fracture mechanics. There are very few studies about damage detection, which is an interesting way to prevent the failure of these ceramics. An iterative method to treat the inverse problem of detecting cracks and voids in piezoelectric structures is proposed. Extended finite element method (XFEM) is employed for solving the inverse problem as it allows the use of a single regular mesh for large number of iterations with different flaw geometries. Firstly, minimization of cost function is performed by Multilevel Coordinate Search (MCS) method. The XFEM-MCS methodology is applied to two dimensional electromechanical problems where flaws considered are straight cracks and elliptical voids. Then a numerical method based on combination of classical shape derivative and level set method for front propagation used in structural optimization is utilized to minimize the cost function. The results obtained show that the XFEM-level set methodology is effectively able to determine the number of voids in a piezoelectric structure and its corresponding locations. The XFEM-level set methodology is improved to solve the inverse problem of detecting inclusion interfaces in a piezoelectric structure. The material interfaces are implicitly represented by level sets which are identified by applying regularisation using total variation penalty terms. The formulation is presented for three dimensional structures and inclusions made of different materials are detected by using multiple level sets. The results obtained prove that the iterative procedure proposed can determine the location and approximate shape of material subdomains in the presence of higher noise levels. Piezoelectric nanostructures exhibit size dependent properties because of surface elasticity and surface piezoelectricity. Initially a study to understand the influence of surface elasticity on optimization of nano elastic beams is performed. The boundary of the nano structure is implicitly represented by a level set function, which is considered as the design variable in the optimization process. Two objective functions, minimizing the total potential energy of a nanostructure subjected to a material volume constraint and minimizing the least square error compared to a target displacement, are chosen for the numerical examples. The numerical examples demonstrate the importance of size and aspect ratio in determining how surface effects impact the optimized topology of nanobeams. Finally a conventional cantilever energy harvester with a piezoelectric nano layer is analysed. The presence of surface piezoelectricity in nano beams and nano plates leads to increase in electromechanical coupling coefficient. Topology optimization of these piezoelectric structures in an energy harvesting device to further increase energy conversion using appropriately modified XFEM-level set algorithm is performed .}, subject = {Finite-Elemente-Methode}, language = {de} }