SBIR-STTR Award

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is to develop a set of innovative and efficient optimization algorithms/tools for uni- and multi-objective design and placement optimization of passive and active elements of smart structures, primarily in a massively parallel environment. The objective functions to be minimized will include structural weight or cost function (including material and actuator/ sensor device costs) and/or distortion index (e.g., strain energy function or maximum displacement). The design variables include discrete and/or continuous cross-sectional areas/sizes of structural element and number, locations, and control gains of active elements, all of which may be simultaneously present. In Phase II, the optimization algorithms [of potentially superefficient Integral GLO/Local Optimization (IGLO)-type] and smart structural optimization methodologies will be fully developed and implemented into two prototype parallel computer programs, IGLOPACK (IGLO software PACKage) and PASOS (Parallel Adaptive Structural Optimization System), respectively. Anticipated Benefits and

Potential Commercial Applications:
The computer codes will have great potential for commercial applications in both civilian and military industries, such as minimum weight and/or distortion design of spacecraft, buildings, offshore platforms, civil infrastructures and automobiles with or without control devices. The IGLOPACK can be used in almost all general optimization problems (engineering, scientific, business, etc.).

This SBIR Phase II project is to continuously and fully develop the title parallel computational design optimization tools for both plain smart structures initiated in Phase I into super powerful, commercializable prototype parallel design tools (computer codes) that contain the following innovative methodological element: (i) uniquely superefficient Integral Global/Local Optimization (IGLO) algorithms, (ii) some efficient parallel computational optimization methods. These tools consist of the IFLOAp (IGLO Algorithm Package), PASA (Parallel Adaptive Structural Analyzer), and PASOS (Parallel Adaptive Structural Optimization System) modular computer codes. Development of these tools are particularly important in significantly improving the design efficiency/cycle time and quality (global minimum solution value) of structures and hardware systems, including weapon-carrying, aerospace-borne precision structures for ballistic missile defense use, for which minimum structural weight and/or minimum pointing or structural distortion error design(s) is (are) or primary importance. In Particular, these tools enable solution of unprecedentedly large-size structural design problems with mixed-discrete/continuous design variables without incurring excessive computational time and cost