Collaboration pursuing method for multidisciplinary design optimization problems

Multidisciplinary design optimization problems are dominated by couplings among subsystems fromulated from different disciplines. Effective and efficient collaboration between subsystems is always desirable when solving multidisciplinary design optimization problems. This work proposes a new sampling-based methedology, named the collaboration pursuing method, for multidisciplinary design optimization problems. In the collaboration pursuing method, a new collaboration model, reflecting both physical and mathematical characteristics of couplings in multidisciplinary design optimization problems, is formulated to guide the search of feasible design solutions. The reflected and maintained by the collaboration model. An adaptive sampling strategy is also developed to speed up the search of local optimal solutions. The new methods is implemented using MATLAB® 6.0 and successfully applied to four test problems, including an engineering design application.