An improved multidisciplinary feasible method using DACE approximation approach

Multidisciplinary feasible method (MDF) is conventional method to multidisciplinary optimization (MDO) and well-understood by users. It reduces the dimensions of the multidisciplinary optimization problem by using the design variables as independent optimization variables. However, at each iteration of the conventional optimization procedure, multidisciplinary analysis (MDA) is numerously performed that results in extreme expense and low optimization efficiency. The intrinsic weakness of MDF is due to the times that it loop fixed-point iterations in MDA, which drive us to improve MDF by building inexpensive approximations as surrogates for expensive MDA. An simple example is presented to demonstrate the usefulness of the improved MDF. Results show that a significant reduction in the number of multidisciplinary analysis required for optimization is obtained as compared with original MDF and the efficiency of optimization is increased.