Engineering environment-based multi-objective optimization platform for aerodynamic design

In the engineering environment, the aim of aerodynamic design of an aircraft is to find the optimal value under the multi-objectives and multi constraints. The design optimization should be completed in a short time and the final scheme must be reliable. Based on high-performance computing environment, an engineering-practical multi-objective optimization platform for aerodynamic design is constructed by adopting modern computational fluid dynamics (CFD) numerical simulation and optimization techniques. The free form deformation method based on non-uniform rational b-splines (NURBS) is used to obtain the parametrized representation of aerodynamic shapes; the mesh deformation method is taken to realize the automatic deformation of computational mash in optimization; a Reynolds averaged Navier-stokes solver based on finite volume method and multi-block structured mesh is used to find out aerodynamic forces; the non-dominated sorting-based multi-objective genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) is used to search for global optimum, while the nonlinear simplex algorithm method is used to search for local optimum. During the optimization process, a “human-in-the-loop” design process is configurated through artificially changing optimum population and introducing artificial experience. For the validation of this platform, optimization design of an airfoil/wing's aerodynamic forces is taken as an example. A clear Pareto-optimal front can be obtained by multi-objective optimization design; on the premise of meeting all constraints, the comprehensive aerodynamic performance of optimized airfoil/wing is significantly improved. The result shows that the multi-objective optimization platform for aerodynamic design developed in this paper can be well applied to engineering practice. © 2016, Press of Chinese Journal of Aeronautics. All right reserved.