Design optimization of vehicle crashworthiness based on new MDO method

The multidisciplinary design optimization(MDO) methods can be used to solve the design problems of large-scale complex engineering system effectively.In order to deal well with the quasiseparable MDO problems usually encountered,a two-level alternating optimization method based on penalty function(PAO) method was introduced.PAO is based on decomposition and coordination strategy,that is,the quasi-separable MDO problem is decomposed into a system level problem and many sub-system level problems,and then the sub-system level problems are solved alternately to achieve the consistency among all sub-systems.PAO was first used to the design optimization of a vehicle crashworthiness problem.Results revealed that this method is effective.