NIELSEN ENGINEERING AND RESEARCH INC MOUNTAIN VIEW CA, Reisenthel, Patrick H., Allen, Theodore T., Lesieutre, Daniel J., Lee, Soo H., NIELSEN ENGINEERING AND RESEARCH INC MOUNTAIN VIEW CA, Reisenthel, Patrick H., Allen, Theodore T., Lesieutre, Daniel J., and Lee, Soo H.
Report developed under STTR contract for topic AF08-BT03. The purpose of this work is to develop methods for representing, managing, and fusing information of various levels of fidelity within an engineering discipline and across multiple disciplines for a wide-range of analysis and design tools. An efficient, radial basis function-based extension of multifidelity sequential Kriging optimization was developed. This method, referred to as multifidelity sequential radial basis optimization (MFSRBO) addresses multicriteria optimization involving more than a single type of model representing more than a single discipline, and takes into account both the location in design space and the fidelity of further data acquisition/infill. Several variants of the method are discussed, and their potential assessed for future development. The application of MFSRBO is illustrated on a UAV wing design function integrating information from structural and fluid models. In the context of virtually any major computational (CAD/FEM) optimization, the proposed methods offer substantially reduced computational cost to arrive at the optimum solution. As a result, engineers and researchers can potentially solve more desigh problems in less time and achieve higher quality results at reduced costs., Prepared in cooperation with Ohio State University, Columbus, OH. The original document contains color images.