Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
The SIMP (Solid Isotropic Microstructure with Penalization for intermediate densities) method was proposed by Bends0e over a decade ago and is becoming generally accepted as a topology technique of overwhelming advantages. It is, therefore, high time to review the origins, theoretical background, history and major advantages of this method. Various problem classes of FE based generalized shape optimization (GSO), covering so-called ISE, ASE and ISEP topologies, are also defined and the computational efficiency of other methods such as OMP (Optimal Microstructure with Penalization) and NOM (NonOptimal Microstructures) is compared with that of SIMP. It is important to emphasize that SIMP was used by the author's research group for advanced FE-based problems already in 1990 and its capability was extended to a very wide range of complex design conditions as early as 1991.
G. I. N. Rozvany (Wed,) studied this question.