My research area: Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) for aeronautical system design
Over the last two decades, there has been an explosion in the ability of engineers to build finite-element models to simulate how a complex product will perform. In the automotive industry, for example, we can now simulate the injury level of passengers in a crash, the vibration and noise experienced when driving on different road surfaces, and the vehicle’s life when subjected to repeated stressful conditions such as pot holes. Moreover, our ability to quickly modify these simulation models to reflect design changes has greatly increased. The net result is that the potential for using optimization to improve an engineering design is now higher than ever before.
The basic idea before we conduct the optimization task, ‘surrogate model’ approach is to avoid the temptation to invest one’s computational budget in answering the question at hand and, instead, invest in developing fast mathematical approximations to the long running computer codes. Given these approximations, many questions can be posed and answered, many graphs can be made, many tradeoffs explored, and many insights gained. One can then return to the long-running computer code to test the ideas so generated and, if necessary, update the approximations and iterate.
As a result, the combination of the ‘surrogate model’ in multidisciplinary design optimization is important. For those, who want to experience like particular understanding ways of sampling, particular ways to use a surrogate for optimization, etc, come and follow me if you are interested in this field.
Like any cooking study, this one part of interest is a place to start, not to finish. I suspect that student learning this course will take some recipes and believe that even the most experienced persons in the field will find new things that pique their interest. So to all those beginning, may I say, Bon Appetit!
