Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 00:09:49 GMT
Server: NCSA/1.5
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/html
Last-modified: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 15:49:28 GMT
Content-length: 9023
Notre Dame MDO
Multidisciplinary Design Technology Development:
A Comparative Investigation of
Integrated Aerospace Vehicle Design Tools
NASA Langley Research Center
Grant Number NASA-NAG-1-1561
January 1, 1994 through December 31, 1996
Project Monitor: Dr. Jaroslaw Sobieski
Principal Investigators:
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering:
John E. Renaud, Ph.D., P.E.
Stephen M. Batill, Ph.D., P.E.
Computer Science and Engineering:
Jay B. Brockman, Ph.D.
Graduate Students:
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering:
Jose Rodriguez
Richard Sellar
Marc Stelmack
Jian Su
Ravindra V. Tappeta
Brett A. Wujek
Computer Science and Engineering:
Eric Johnson
Arun N. Lokanathan
Stan Yoder
Introduction and Goals:
The purpose of this three-year reseach project (1994-1996) is to
develop a framework and systematic methodology to facilitate the
application of Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) to a diverse
class of system design problems. MDO is based upon the philosophy of
identifying the appropriate combination of parameters which are under the
control of a designer (or design team) and which will result in the most
effective product or system. For all practical aerospace systems, the
design of a systems is a complex sequence of events which integrates the
activities of a variety of discipline "experts" and their associated
"tools". The development, archiving and exchange of information between
these individual experts is central to the design task. It is this
information which provides the basis for these experts to make their design
decisions - resulting in the final product.
The development of MDO has been inextricably tied to developments
in computer hardware and software. Advanced analysis tools such as
computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and finite element analysis (FEA) have
now been integrated into the daily activities of many designers. However,
design decisions are often based on a variety of information sources,
analytic, numerical simulation, design heuristic or even "intuition". The
development and integration of this information using "high powered
computing" tools has begun to demonstrate the true potential of MDO.
A variety of methods and applications are being considered. In each
case the fundamental approach is to provide the individual discipline
expert with the information necessary to evaluate the system as a whole and
to be able to understand the impact of individual decisions on the overall
system design. The methods being considered include extensions to Global
Sensitivity Equations (GSE), the application of artificial neural networks
for design space mapping and the integration of distributed computing and
process scheduling into the MDO environment.
The current research effort is a joint program between the Departments of
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
and the
Computer Science and Engineering
Departments at the University of Notre Dame. The coordination of efforts within the project is based upon identification of
a series of
Demonstration Problems
, the formulation of a number of
MDO Algorithms
and specific
Design Tool Development.
Test problem and algorithm development provide a focus for the efforts of each of these individual
researchers. These problems are being selected so that they represent a
diverse spectrum of MDO applications and will present a variety of
challenges for the methods being developed and evaluated as part of this
research program. As this three year program continues, information related
to each of the primary phases of the project will be added to this
document. The results of those issues identified as
Future Efforts
will be used to assess applicability of the
MDO tools
to a wide variety of applications. A number of references are available which outline various developments associated with this research program.
The Annual Report which summarizes the research activities from October 1994 to October 1995 can be accessed and the slides used for the Annual Presentation at NASA Langley Research Center on October 16, 1995 are being processed for posting on this web site.
The following are a selection of recent publications developed as part of this research program. Many are attached as postscipt files and if you have a postscript viewer they should be accessible for review and copying. If you are unable to access any of these papers and are interested in receiving a copy, please contact - via email - any of the Principal Investigators listed above.
- Renaud, J.E., Sellar, R.S., Batill, S.M. and Kar, P., "Design Driven Coordination Procedure for Concurrent Subspace Optimization in MDO", AIAA-94-1482, AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC 35th Structures, Structural Dynamics and Materials Conference, Hilton Head, South Carolina, April 1994.
- Wujek, B., Renaud, J.E., 1994, "Design Driven Concurrent Optimization in System Design Problems Using Second Order Sensitivities", AIAA 94-4276, Fifth AIAA/USAF/NASA/ISSMO Symposium on Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization, Panama City, Florida, September 7-9.
- Sellar, R.S., Batill, S.M. and Renaud, J.E., "Optimization of Mixed Discrete/Continuous Design Variable Systems Using Neural Networks," AIAA-94-4348, AIAA/USAF/NASA/ISSMO Symposium on Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization, Panama City, Florida, Sept. 1994.
- Renaud, J.E.,Wujek, B.A., 1994, "A Concurrent Engineering Approach for Electronic Package Design," Proceedings of the 1995 NSF Design and Manufacturing Grantees Conference, Published by the Society for Manufacturing Engineers, Dearborn, Michigan, pp. 51-52, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, January 4-6, 1995.
- Wujek, B.A., Renaud, J.E., and Batill, S. M., "A Concurrent Engineering Approach to Multidisciplinary Design in a Distributed Computing Environment,"
Proceedings of the ICASE/LaRC Workshop on Multidisciplinary Design Optimization, Edited by N. Alexandrov and M.Y. Hussaini, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
- Wujek, B.A., Renaud, J.E., Batill, S.M., Brockman, J.B., "Concurrent Subspace Optimization Using Design Variable Sharing in a Distributed Computing Environment," ASME 21st Design Automation Conference, Boston, MA, September 17-21, 1995.
- Wujek, B., Renaud, J., Batill, S., Johnson, E., and Brockman, J., "Design Flow Management and Multidisciplinary Design Optimization in Application to Aircraft Concept Sizing," AIAA Paper 96-0713, AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit, Reno, Nevada, January 1996.
- Sellar, R.S., Batill, S.M., and Renaud, J.E., "Response Surface Based, Concurrent Subspace Optimization for Multidisciplinary System Design,"AIAA Paper 96-0714, AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit, Reno, Nevada, January 1996.
- Sellar, R.S., Stelmack, M., Batill, S.M., and Renaud, J.E., "Response Surface Approximations for Discipline Coordination in Multidisciplinary Design Optimization," AIAA Paper AIAA-96-1383, AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC 37th Structures, Structural Dynamics and Materials Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah, April 1996.
- Sellar, R., Batill, S., "Concurrent Subspace Optimization Using Gradient-Enhanced Neural Network Approximations", 6th AIAA/NASA/USAF/ISSMO Symposium on Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization, Bellevue, WA, AIAA 94-4019, September 1996.