Recent Development in Multidisciplinary Design Optimization of Vehicle Structures 1

Multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) of vehicle structures under the constraints of crashworthiness, noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH), durability, and other performance attributes is one of the imperative goals for automotive industry. It requires computational resources, robust simulation capabilities, and efficient optimization methodologies to achieve it. This paper intends to move closer towards that goal by addressing the intensive computation aspects of MDO by using parallel computers and approximation techniques for dissimilar analyses and using sequential quadratic programming for optimization. Multiple disciplines are considered, including: NVH, roof crush, full frontal impact, 50% frontal offset impact, and side impact.