Surrogate-Based Shape Optimization of an Underwater Glider via Airfoil Design

This paper proposes a shape optimization method for blended-wing-body underwater gliders (BWBUG). First, three crucial airfoil sections are selected from the BWBUG in this paper. Next, these airfoils are parameterized with Class-Shape function Transformation (CST). And then, the airfoils are optimized by a surrogate-based method along with CFD-based simulations. Besides, a parallel adaptive sequential sampling method is also applied. Finally, the shape of the optimized underwater glider is generated with the optimized airfoil sections. Results show that the lift-to-drag ratio of optimized shape gets improved