B-SPLINE BASED ROBUST FORMULATION IN TOPOLOGY OPTIMIZATION Gu, Yu In this thesis, we extend the B-spline based density representation to robust topology optimization. The B-spline based representation has been shown to have the ability of preventing checker-boards. With separate analysis and design mesh, the B-spline based filter is also competitive on computation storage compared with usual density filter. However, the current B-spline based representation is not robust where gray transitions exist. The recent proposed robust formulation highlights the manufacturability that simulates under- or over- etching designs compared with intermediate design. The robustness is demonstrated through three test cases. The minimum length control for quadratic B-splines is analytically derived with respect to knot span size and threshold. Our study about the characteristics of rectangular domain of B-spline based representation, shows that the optimized designs are comparable to those by density filter. M.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, December 2014 Qian, Xiaoping 2014 2014-12 Thesis application/pdf islandora:9035 http://hdl.handle.net/10560/3434 MMAE / Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering Illinois Institute of Technology en In Copyright http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/ Restricted Access