A robust and automated design optimization framework is developed in this work. This wrapper program automates the design process by coupling the in-house UNstructured PArallel Compressible (UNPAC) flow solver with a novel toolbox for sensitivity analysis based on the discrete adjoint method. The Fast automatic Differentiation using Operator-overloading Technique (FDOT) toolbox utilizes an advanced recording technique to store the expression tree which can significantly reduce the memory footprint and the computational cost of the adjoint calculations. Additionally, this novel toolbox uses an iterative process to evaluate the sensitivities of the cost function with respect to the entire design space and requires only minimal modifications to the available solver. The design optimization framework, UNPAC-DOF, is then employed for aerodynamic design applications based on a gradient-based optimization algorithm. This framework is used to improve airfoil and wing designs for minimized drag or maximized efficiency.
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Memory Efficient Adjoint Sensitivity Analysis for Aerodynamic Shape Optimization
An improved version of the Fast automatic Differentiation using Operator-overloading Technique (FDOT) toolbox is developed in this work. The enhanced sensitivity analysis toolbox utilizes an expression-based tape approach -- a first-of-its-kind implementation in Fortran programming language -- that can significantly reduce the memory footprint while improving the computational efficiency of the adjoint-based automatic differentiation (AD). In the proposed approach, the partial derivatives are calculated for each expression using the reverse adjoint accumulation for the active variables involved on the right-hand-side of that expression. The recorded partial derivative information is then used in a very efficient adjoint evaluation process to calculate the entire Jacobian information. The enhanced toolbox is coupled with the in-house UNstructured PArallel Compressible (UNPAC) flow solver for a robust design optimization framework, called UNPAC-DOF. The efficiency and robustness of the proposed technique and the resulting framework are tested for aerodynamic shape optimization problems applied to airfoil and wing geometries.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1803760
- PAR ID:
- 10176294
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- AIAA Scitech 2020 Forum
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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