AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics and Materials Conference, St. Louis, MO - Vol.AIAA-1999-1349, p.1306-1313
Authors: John Garcelon, Vladimir Balabanov, and Jarslow SobieskiPublication Date: April 12-15, 1999
Abstract:
Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) has become popular as engineering systems have become more complex. One of the most challenging applications of MDO is in the field of simultaneous aerodynamic and structural optimization because of the design trade offs between lift, drag, weight and strength. In addition, there is an inherent coupling between structural deformations and aerodynamic shape for long range and high-speed transport aircraft. These issues create organizational complexity and potential for high computational expense. This paper demonstrates a technique for aeroelastic MDO that couples aerodynamic optimization with structural optimization as a sub-optimization problem. The organization complexity of MDO is reduced by the sub-optimization problem. Further, by dividing the MDO problem into a multi-level optimization problem, transferring data from one discipline to another is simplified. It is shown that gradient based optimization can be computationally efficient. Finally, it is demonstrated how commercially available software can be effectively used for solving MDO problems.