Past research at this university has proven the feasibility of the multi-disciplinary design of a complex system involving the complete interaction of aerodynamics and structural mechanics. Critical to this design process, is the ability to accurately and efficiently calculate the sensitivities of the involved quantities (such as drag and dynamic pressure) with respect to the design variables. These calculations had been addressed in past research, but it was felt that insufficient accuracy had been obtained. The focus of this research was to improve the accuracy of these sensitivity calculations with a thorough investigation of the computational aspects of the problem. These studies led to a more complete understanding of the source of the errors that plagued previous results and provided substantially improved sensitivity calculations.

Additional research led to an improvement in the aerodynamic-structural interface which aided in the accuracy of the sensitivity computations. Furthermore, this new interface removed discontinuities in the calculation of the drag which the previous model tended to yield. These improvements were made possible with the application of shape functions in surface deflection analysis, instead of the previous ‘zonal’ approach. Other factors which led to accuracy improvements were changes to the aerodynamic model and the paneling scheme.

Final studies with the optimization process demonstrated the ability of the improved sensitivities to accurately approximate the design problem and provided useful results. Additional studies on the optimization process itself provided information on move limit restrictions and various constraint problems.