Multidisciplinary layout design optimization method using multi-fidelity analysis model inspired by the explicit method (Application to layout design problem considering a heat dissipation characteristic)

Abstract

Multi-fidelity analysis has been used for reducing the calculation cost of evaluating the design solution, which is the most costly process in design optimization. In general, multi-fidelity analysis is applied to problems with continuous design variables, which are suitable to construct an approximate model of design space such as the response surface. On the other hand, combinatorial optimization problems, e.g., layout design, are difficult to apply the conventional multi-fidelity analysis, since the response surface cannot be constructed due to the property of the design variables. In this paper, we propose a multi-fidelity optimization method independent of the response surface and a simple analysis model for the method, and apply them to multi-disciplinary optimal layout design problem which is a complicated combinatorial optimization problem. The proposed analytical model, which adopts the concept of the explicit method, realizes for reducing the calculation time by simplifying the physical phenomenon. Then, the multi-fidelity optimization method is constructed by combining the proposed analysis model with the thermal network method which is a well-known thermal analysis method. We confirm that there is a strong correlation between the calculation result of the proposed analysis model and of a CAE software, and show that the proposed analysis model is suitable as a low fidelity model. The effectiveness of the proposed optimization method is demonstrated through numerical experiments.

Keywords

• multiobjective optimization
• layout design
• multi-disciplinary design optimization
• simulated annealing
• highly packed equipments
• explicit method