Variable-Complexity Response Surface Approximations for
Wing Structural Weight in HSCT Design
13th Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit
15-18 January 1996
Reno, Nevada
Matthew Kaufman, Vladimir Balabanov, Susan L. Burgee,
Anthony A. Giunta,
Bernard Grossman, William H. Mason, Layne T. Watson,
and Raphael T. Haftka
Abstract
A procedure for generating and using a polynomial approximation to wing bending
material weight of a High Speed Civil Transport (HSCT) is presented. Response
surface methodology is used to fit a quadratic polynomial to data gathered from
a series of structural optimizations. Several techniques are employed in order
to minimize the number of required structural optimizations and to maintain
accuracy. First, another weight function based on statistical data is used to
identify a suitable model function for the response surface. In a similar
manner, geometric and loading parameters that are likely to appear in the
response surface model are also identified. Next, simple analysis techniques
are used to find regions of the design space where reasonable HSCT designs
could occur. The use of intervening variables along with analysis of variance
reduce the number of polynomial terms in the response surface model function.
Structural optimization is then performed by the program GENESIS on a 28-node
Intel Paragon. Finally, optimizations of the HSCT are completed both with and
without the response surface.
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