Agile MDAO Systems

Agile MDAO Systems: A Graph-based Methodology to Enhance Collaborative Multidisciplinary Design

van Gent, I. (TU Delft Flight Performance and Propulsion)

Veldhuis, L.L.M. (promotor)
la Rocca, G. (copromotor)

Delft University of Technology

2019-10-03

The need to continuously design better aircraft is challenging on multiple fronts: the existing tube-and-wing aircraft are difficult to improve further, while more creative configurations prove more cumbersome to design due to the lack of empirical knowledge and the (usually) more highly integrated components. Multidisciplinary Design Analysis and Optimization (MDAO) can offer major benefits to tackle these issues. However, MDAO is not yet widely applied in the industrial context due to two major hurdles: configuration hurdle the set-up of the first executable MDAO workflow takes too long —namely 60-80%of the available project time—in collaborative projects in which a large team of heterogeneous experts needs to operate a large, complex MDAO system; reconfiguration hurdle once the executable system has been established, it lacks agility and cannot be reconfigured easily to address ‘what if scenarios’ or answer new questions arising from the insights obtained from previously configured systems. Typical reconfigurations include the removal, addition, or modification of disciplinary tools, adjustment of the MDAO problem to be solved (e.g. new design variables, different objective, additional constraints), or the alternation of the underlying strategy (i.e. design convergence, design of experiments, optimization) that needs to be implemented as an executable workflow.

MDAO
MDO
Collaborative design

https://doi.org/10.4233/uuid:c42b30ba-2ba7-4fff-bf1c-f81f85e890af

978-94-6384-067-5

Institutional Repository

doctoral thesis

© 2019 I. van Gent