COLLABORATIVE OPTIMIZATION OF SYSTEMS INVOLVING DISCRETE DESIGN AT THE DISCIPLINE LEVEL

The multidisciplinary design optimization technique known as collabora tive optimization is applied to two example problems to illustrate the flexibility that the technique extends to disciplinary design teams. In the first problem, disciplinary design variables are discrete-value d representing the cross-sectional dimensions of standardized shapes f or structural members in a frame. In the second problem, discrete disc iplinary design variables are used to represent the choice between dif ferent structural configurations of a truss tower. In both problems, d isciplinary design was performed by the non-gradient-based strategy, e xhaustive search. Nevertheless, system-level optimization was performe d by a gradient-based strategy using simple formulas for the necessary gradients.