Combinative algorithms for the multidisciplinary collaborative simulation of complex mechatronic products based on major step and convergent integration step

Multidisciplinary collaborative simulation (MCS) is an important area of research in the domain of multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO). Although previous research for MCS has to some extent addressed some issues like using of multiple tools, integration stability, control of step size, data synchronization, etc, further work is still necessary to study how to achieve improved precision. A theoretical model is formulated to describe and analyze the integration process of MCS. A basic algorithm with equal major steps is proposed based on the model, along with two methods of implementation for the model, namely the serial method and the parallel method. A further algorithm based on convergent integration step is proposed, which has a more flexible strategy for run-time integration. The influence of interpolation techniques on simulation performance is studied as well. Simulations of the performance of various algorithms with different interpolation techniques are performed for both a simple numerical example and a complex mechatronic product. The novel algorithm based on convergent integration step, when used with a high-order interpolation technique, has better performance in terms of precision and efficiency. The innovation of this paper is mainly on the validation of high precision of the proposed convergent integration step algorithm.