Efficient Global Optimization Applied to Design and Knowledge Discovery of Supersonic Wing

Efficient global optimization (EGO) was applied to the multi-objective design and knowledge discovery of a supersonic transport (SST) wing. The objective functions considered here are employed to maximize the lift-to-drag ratio at supersonic cruise, to minimize the sonic boom intensity and to minimize wing structural weight, simultaneously. The EGO process is based on Kriging surrogate models, which were constructed using several sample designs. Subsequently, the solution space could be explored through the maximization of expected improvement (EI) values that corresponded to the objective function of each Kriging model because the surrogate models provide an estimate of the uncertainty at the predicted point. Once a number of solutions have been obtained for the EI maximization problem by means of a multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA), the sample designs could be used to improve the models' accuracy and identify the optimum solutions at the same time. In this paper, 108 sample points are evaluated for the constructions of the Kriging models. In order to obtain further information about the design space, two knowledge discovery techniques are applied once the sampling process is completed. First, through functional analysis of variance (ANOVA), quantitative information is gathered and then, self-organizing maps (SOMs) are created to qualitatively evaluate the aircraft design. The proposed design process provides valuable information for the efficient design of an SST wing.