on the structural optimization and presenting a new method

two main goals are being pursued in this paper. first, a brief summary of the structural optimization methods is presented. although most of these methods are general and are used in analysis and design of skeletal as well as continuous structures, discussion is more often directed towards the shape optimization .the second second goal of this paper is to present a new method for sensitivity analysis of two dimensional elastic problems. in this direction, required equations are derived and presented along with a numerical example. this numerical exprience shows clearly the applicability of the method.