Title: An Object-Oriented Framework for Multidisciplinary Design Optimization

Speaker: Joaquim R. R. A. Martins, Assistant Professor, Canada Research Chair in Multidisciplinary Optimization, University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS)

Date/Time: Tuesday, July 10, 2007, 10:30 am - 11:30 am

Location: CSRI Building, Room 90 (Sandia NM)

Brief Abstract: We present $\pi$MDO, an object-oriented framework that facilitates the usage of algorithms for multidisciplinary optimization (MDO). The resulting implementation of the MDO architectures is efficient, scalable, and portable. The main advantage of the proposed framework is that it is flexible, with a strong emphasis on  object-oriented classes and operator overloading and it is therefore  ideal for the rapid development and evaluation of new MDO  architectures. The top layer interface is programmed in Python and it allows for the layers below the interface to be programmed in C, C++, Fortran and other languages. We describe an implementation of $\pi$MDO and demonstrate that we can take advantage of object-oriented programming and operator overloading to obtain intuitive, easy-to-read, and easy-to-develop codes that are efficient. This allows developers to focus on the new algorithms they are developing and testing, rather than on implementation details. Several numerical experiments demonstrate that the various MDO architectures yield the correct solutions and allow the evaluation of their relative performance.