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Considering uncertainties in the design process is one of the most important factors to achieve reasonable and reliable results. In this article, a collaborative structure, which is a multidisciplinary design optimization, is combined with a robust design approach to design an optimum and robust launch vehicle, while considering the effects of uncertainties. First, a liquid-fuel vehicle is designed under two disciplines to send a 1200 kg mass to the 750 km orbit from the earth surface with 50.7◦ orbital inclination, using the collaborative structure. It should be said that the first discipline includes three subsystems that are engine design, geometry design and estimating the mass. Also, the second discipline includes three subsystems that are pitch program, aerodynamic calculations and trajectory simulation. Then, the optimum collaborative output is combined with the robust design in a multi-objective model to achieve the final vehicle configuration. The results show that the calculated mass of the first stage of the project using the collaborative robust design process is 3 tons heavier than the calculated mass using optimum collaborative design approach and the engines working time is increased. The overall size of the launch vehicle is increased too. The outputs of each subsystem have been evaluated and also, the overall results have been compared with another design process, i.e. MDF. This comparison shows the acceptable accuracy of the proposed approach.

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Satellite Thermal Control subsystem has the responsibility of maintaining the temperature of different parts and other subsystems in an allowable range. The purpose of this paper is to optimally design the satellite thermal control subsystem. In order to achieve this goal, at first a software for thermal analysis of satellite was developed and validated. Receiving orbital data and Satellite’s properties, the software simulates the position of the satellite in any desired orbit and calculates input and output thermal flux. Meanwhile, the software calculates the temperature of each sides of satellite in cold case and hot case. At the end, it computs the minimum and maximum temperature of the satellite. Combination of three commonly used thermal control methods for small satellite was used. Insulation thickness, thickness of radiator’s cover, and the power of radiator are considered as design parameter and allowable temperature of surfaces (minimum and maximum allowable temperature) are considered as design constraints. A weighted function of mass, cost, and power consumption of thermal control system are chosen as objective function that can be an indicator of the cost. Sequential Quadratic Programming as a powerful method in nonlinear optimization was used to optimize thermal control properties.The results demonstrated that the objective function improved dramatically comparing to initial design. High speed, appropriate precision, and extensibility of this software to thermal control design of vast majority of small satellites, makes this research superior. Therefore, this software could be cooperated as the thermal control design module in multidisciplinary design optimization of satellites.

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In this paper, conceptual design of a General Aviation Aircraft (GAA) is explained as a multi-objective Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO). In the early sizing phase, preliminary aircraft configuration is defined based on a predetermined requirements and statistical Study. Afterwards, conceptual design disciplines are developed and integrated based on Multidisciplinary Design Feasibility (MDF) structure to improve the aircraft performance. The MDF loop is established by implementing a multidisciplinary analysis which includes disciplines as engine selection, weight and sizing, aerodynamics, performance and stability. In this design process, Constraints and algorithms are considered based on the Gudmundsson design approach. Design variables are selected carefully using sensitivity analysis on design objectives (i.e. reducing the weight and increasing the range). In order to obtain a feasible design, static stability constraints are considered. The NSGA-II multi-objective evolutionary optimization algorithm is utilized to demonstrate a set of possible answers in the form of the Pareto front. By selecting different engines and illustrating the Pareto fronts resulted from optimization process, the feasibility and effectiveness of rapid GAA conceptual design is demonstrated.

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The seismic design of the structures is subjected to uncertainties originating from various sources. To ensure that a safe design is achieved, the uncertainties must be considered in the seismic design process. The reliability-based seismic design is the proper approach that directly takes into account the uncertainties. In this approach the performance objectives are reliability-based seismic criteria expressed either in terms of an annual probability of exceeding a given performance level or in terms of a probability of exceeding a given performance level conditioned on the seismic intensity corresponding to a specific hazard level. It is obvious that the ultimate aim of the reliability-based seismic design of a building is not only to satisfy the reliability-based seismic criteria, but also to minimize initial or life-cycle cost. The reliability-based seismic design optimization (RBDO) is the method that achieves the most economic design satisfying the reliability-based seismic criteria (probabilistic constraints). However, the RBDO is less preferred. This is because to ensure that reliability-based seismic criteria are achieved, the statistics parameters of the seismic demand and capacity must be determined through the results of the nonlinear dynamic analyses. On the other hand, the use of the nonlinear dynamic analyses in the RBDO method can lead to the increase of the computational cost so that the personal computers require several years to run it. In this study, a method to produce the reliability-based economic seismic design is proposed. Reliability-based seismic criteria are expressed in terms of a mean annual probability of exceeding a given performance level. The main goals are to ensure satisfying the reliability-based seismic criteria through the use of the results of the incremental dynamic analyses and to produce the economic seismic design within reasonable computing time. The proposed method achieves the two goals through determining the optimum design of the force-based design method that satisfies the reliability-based seismic criteria. The optimum design of the force-based design method depends on the value of the response modification factor. The value of the response modification factor of a building, which leads to satisfying the reliability-based seismic criteria, is in the range of one to a maximum value. From an economic point of view, the desirable value of the response modification factor is the maximum one, which results in a minimum design base shear and accordingly in an economic design. In order to respond to the two main goals, the method aims to determine the maximum value of the response modification factor of a building so that leads to satisfying the reliability-based seismic criteria. The proposed method is used to produce the seismic design of a 4-story building for two reliability-based seismic criteria. The steel special moment resisting frame is considered as the lateral load resisting system in the studied building. The results reveal that the proposed method can efficiently produce the economic seismic designs satisfying the reliability-based seismic criteria within reasonable computing time.While the designed frame by Zacharenaki et al using existing RBDO method can not satisfy specifications of reliability and this is shown the ability and efficiency of the proposed method.

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In this paper, a systematic approach is considered to Design an optimal hypersonic Nozzle of a shock tunnel. After assigning the requirements and accomplishment of conceptual and preliminary design phases, a modern optimization strategy based on genetic algorithm and a CFD solver has been used to fine tune the nozzle convergent divergent contour. In this way, parameterization of the overall nozzle contour was done with a few control points and a Bezier curve. This arrangement showed a good flexibility to generate appropriate curves for nozzle shape. Design objectives were evaluated with a N-S viscous solver with a two equation turbulence model. Three objective functions were scalerized in a term with summation of weighted parameters: minimum total pressure loss, Mach number uniform distribution along test section and minimum axial flow deviation. A number of geometrical and physical constraints such as nozzle length, throat area, inlet and outlet diameters and inlet boundary conditions were also considered and finally, an optimized nozzle contour showed a significant improvement of about 3% in quality of the Mach 6 flow in the test section.

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