Sensitivity analysis—the basis for optimization

The present paper contains a numerical study on semi‐analytical design sensitivity analysis. The paper describes the dissimilarities of sensitivities due to mesh refinement for a total of five different plane stress elements. Furthermore, we discuss which mesh relocation technique to use in order to perform an efficient sensitivity analysis, i.e. whether a relocation of nodes on the entire domain is necessary, or whether we can fulfil the accuracy requirements by only relocating the boundary nodes.