Parallel Variable-Complexity Response Surface Strategies for
HSCT Design
Computational Aerosciences Workship
7-9 March 1995
NASA Ames Research Center
A.A. Giunta, V. Balabanov, S. Burgee,
B. Grossman, R.T. Haftka, W.H. Mason, and L.T. Watson
Summary
The use of multidisciplinary optimization (MDO) techniques in aerospace
vehicles is often limited because of the significant computational
expense incurred in the analysis of the vehicle and its many systems.
In response to this difficulty, a variable-complexity
modeling approach, involving the use of refined and computationally
expensive models together with simple and inexpensive models has
been developed. This variable-complexity technique has been previously
applied to combined aerodynamic-structural optimization of subsonic
aircraft wings, and the aerodynamic-structural optimization of the
High Speed Civil Transport (HSCT).
In the present work, the variable-complexity modeling approach has been
combined with parallel computing to further reduce the computational
demands of aircraft MDO. A response surface methodology is used to
construct polynomial approximations to the aerodynamic drag and to
the structural weight predicted by structural optimization. Coarse
grained parallelization is employed, with each computer node
performing a full aerodynamic analysis or a full structural
optimization. The work was implemented on Virginia Tech's twenty-eight
node Intel Paragon parallel computer.
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