On benchmarking and good scientific practise in topology optimization

Topology optimization has developed tremendously and new approaches, algorithms and applications are appearing on a daily basis. However, how to fairly evaluate and compare new concepts and ideas to existing ones is an open question due to the broadness of modelling approaches, geometry parameterizations and physical applications. Ideally, the community should define common benchmark examples but again, how to define benchmarks that are generally applicable? In the lack or impracticality of common benchmarks, the responsibility of fair evaluation of contributions is up to authors but the literature shows multiple examples where this seems to be challenging. This note lists a number of recommendations, tools and concepts that papers in the field of topology optimization (and possibly other fields) should consider to represent good scientific practise.