Integrated design of aluminum foam processing parameters and sandwich panels under uncertainty

Aluminum foam is a useful material for lightweight structural and impact attenuation applications due to its excellent energy-absorbing characteristics. The aim of this study is to further enhance the performance of closed-cell aluminum foam-cored sandwich panels while satisfying given design requirements. A new design approach is employed, whereby the materials and product design are integrated, and which incorporates multilevel design optimization under various types of uncertainty in the analysis and manufacturing processes. Sandwich panels are designed by controlling the processing parameters for the foam core and panel geometry according to the design methods being used. The design variables are optimized through traditional multilevel optimization and analytical target cascading method. Inductive design exploration method is introduced to identify the feasible regions for the design variable in a design hierarchy to be insensitive to uncertainty. This work presents an in-depth examination of the design results and the efficiency of the design methods for pursuing robust design solutions.

Hybrid Power/Energy Generation Through Multidisciplinary and Multilevel Design Optimization With Complementarity Constraints

The optimal design of hybrid power generation systems (HPGSs) can significantly improve the technical and economic performance of power supply. However, the discrete-time simulation with logical disjunctions involved in HPGS design usually leads to a nonsmooth optimization model, to which well-established techniques for smooth nonlinear optimization cannot be directly applied. This paper casts the HPGS design optimization problem as a multidisciplinary design optimization problem with complementarity constraints, a formulation that introduces a complementarity formulation of the nonsmooth logical disjunction, as well as a time horizon decomposition framework, to ensure a fast local solution. A numerical study of a stand-alone hybrid photovoltaic/wind power generation system is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.