Abstract
This paper presents the structural shape optimization with linear elastic material, large displacement and small strains. The whole shape optimization process is carried out by coupling a closed geometric shape in R-2 with boundaries defined by B-splines curves, automatic mesh generation at each iteration, exact sensitivity analysis and mathematical programming method (SQP: Sequential Quadratic Programming). The design variables are the control point's coordinates which minimize the Von-Mises criteria, with a constraint that the total material volume of the structure remains constant. In this work the sensitivity analysis is performed using two methods: numerically by an efficient finite difference scheme and by the new method called exact Jacobian method. The feasibility of the proposed method is carried out for two numerical examples.