Optimal Pick-up Locations for Transport and Handling of Limp Materials

Pick-up locations are obtained on two-dimensional limp parts that minimize a measure of deformation (strain energy). The parts are modeled as shells undergoing arbitrarily large deformations and rotations by a geometrically exact nonlinear shell finite element formulation. The strain energy is computed from the finite element solution for deforma tion, and the optimal locations are obtained by solving a bound constrained optimization problem. Results are given for various two-dimensional shapes.