Multidisciplinary design optimisation techniques

Abstract

Design optimisation of a multidisciplinary project in engineering involves the decomposition of a system into disciplines and the subsequent association of their contributions. This work was aimed at presenting the most common decomposition and association techniques currently used in multidisciplinary design optimisation (MDO). Amongst the decomposition techniques this work includes hierarchical and non-hierarchical approaches as well as the most popular numerical procedures. The association techniques include: one-level methods (e.g. all-at-once optimisation and simultaneous analysis and design), multilevel methods (e.g. concurrent subspace optimisation and collaborative optimisation) and robust design. This work also incorporates an illustrative numerical example.