Organized by: Anca-Maria Toader and Cristian Barbarosie, University of Lisbon, Portugal

Description:
Free Material Optimization is a branch of structural optimization that gains more and more interest in the recent years. The goal of Free Material Optimization is to design the ultimately best material (its mechanical properties and distribution in space) for a specific purpose. The design variable is the full elastic stiffness tensor which can vary from point to point; it should be physically meaningful but is otherwise not restricted in any way. This technique generalizes other approaches like shape/topology optimization, optimization through homogenization.