GLOBAL OPTIMIZATION USING ACCURATE APPROXIMATIONS IN DESIGN SYNTHESIS

The design variable space of a design synthesis problem may contain mu ltiple local optima. In the approximation concepts approach to design synthesis, the design objective and constraint functions are approxima ted in order to reduce the overall cost. If the approximations accurat ely capture the actual behavior of the objective function and constrai nts, then the approximate design variable space may also contain local optima. In this work, a multistart optimization algorithm is used to search for the global optimum of the actual design using just a few de sign cycles. Example problems are presented to illustrate the methodol ogy set forth.