Development and evaluation of the adjoint approach for aeroelastic wing optimization

Abstract

In the context of gradient-based optimization techniques for multidisciplinary problems an efficient approach was sought to evaluate the gradient of the cost function with respect to the design variables; also called the sensitivities. The traditional approach to calculate the sensitivities, the finite differences, can become prohibitively expensive in high-fidelity optimizations. For this reason an existing adjoint approach was suggested to be further developed in order to suit coupled aero-structural systems. Then the developed approach was evaluated and tested. The results showed that the approach can provide accurate sensitivities in a very efficient way.