Multidisciplinary Design Optimization of Vehicle Weight Reduction 2016-01-0301

Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) is often required in aircraft design to address the multidisciplinary feasibility issues due to the disciplines, for example, aerodynamics, propulsion, and structures, are heavily coupled. However, in automobile designs, can we apply different type of MDO decomposition originated from aircraft design, to some MDO problem, for example, a vehicle weight reduction example? Also, to effectively and efficiently accommodate design changes, multi-party collaboration between discipline specialists, and fast decision making, a web-based MDO platform with knowledge-based repository for resource sharing, capability of version control, and enhancing data security, is very much needed. Two types of MDO decomposition: All-at-Once (AAO) and Collaborative Optimization (CO) are formulated for the weight reduction example. A typical six-step MDO process, from building single discipline work flow to comparing optimization results, is illustrated step-by-step.