• Dr. Leifur Leifsson
  • Reykjavik University
  • 118C Surge Building
  • 3:30 p.m.
  • Faculty Host: Dr. Joseph Schetz

The use of optimization methods in the aerodynamic design process, as a design support tool or for automated design, has now become commonplace. The use of high-fidelity methods, coupled with optimization techniques, has led to improved design efficiency. Although simulation-driven aerodynamic design optimization has progressed much in the last decades, it still involves numerous challenges. One of the biggest issues is that high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics simulations are computationally expensive. At the same time, conventional optimization techniques usually require a large number of simulations. Therefore, direct design optimization of high-fidelity models using traditional gradient-based techniques can be prohibitive, even with adjoint sensitivity information. Variable-fidelity optimization methods have shown to be efficient and can offer significant savings in computational cost. In this talk, recent progress in aerodynamic shape optimization using variable-fidelity models will be reviewed. Applications to the design of transonic and low-speed airfoils and wings are presented.

Biography:

Dr. Leifur Leifsson received a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 2006.  He is currently an Associate Professor with the School of Science and Engineering at Reykjavik University in Iceland.  His research is focused on surrogate-based modeling and optimization.