With the recent dramatic increase in available computing power, numerical optimization has become an attractive tool for the design of complex engineering systems. However, use of these techniques in design has been hindered by (i) the difficulty to translate in a faithful manner the actual design problem into mathematical optimization problem, (ii) the inability of classical optimization tools to efficiently take into account the many distinctive features of optimization problems arising in a design context, and (iii) the unavailability of software tools offering to the designer a powerful as well as congenial environment supporting such capabilities. The investigators seek an optimization-based design methodology that accommodates the inherent trade-off driven character of most design problems. This methodology calls extensively upon the designer's knowledge and experience and emphasizes man-machine interaction.
