A Novel Deflation Approach for Topology Optimization and Application for Optimization of Bipolar Plates of Electrolysis Cells

TL;DR

This paper presents a new deflation method to find multiple local minimizers in topology optimization, demonstrated on bipolar plates for electrolysis cells, improving design diversity and practical applicability.

Contribution

A novel deflation technique for systematically identifying multiple local solutions in topology optimization problems, applied to bipolar plate design for electrolysis cells.

Findings

Successfully finds multiple local minimizers in topology optimization.

Enables discovery of novel bipolar plate designs.

Validated on a practical electrolysis cell application.

Abstract

Topology optimization problems usually feature multiple local minimizers. To guarantee convergence to local minimizers that perform best globally or to find local solutions that are desirable for practical applications due to easy manufacturability or aesthetic designs, it is important to compute multiple local minimizers of topology optimization problems. In this paper, we introduce a novel deflation approach to systematically find multiple local minimizers of general topology optimization problems. The approach is based on a penalization of previously found local solutions in the objective. We validate our approach on the so-called two-pipes five-holes example. Finally, we introduce a model for the topology optimization of bipolar plates of hydrogen electrolysis cells and demonstrate that our deflation approach enables the discovery of novel designs for such plates.