This project is focused of the formulation and demonstration of an adjoint-based approach for computing sensitivities of high fidelity multidisciplinary aerospace design problems that remain…

This is a $102,000.00 training grant awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to the University of Wyoming (UW) for research on computational methods for aerospace design optimization. The project focuses on developing an "adjoint-based approach" to accurately compute design sensitivities even when the underlying analysis models are not fully converged, which is a common challenge in complex aerospace simulations. This capability will enable more reliable multidisciplinary design optimization and uncertainty quantification for a range of aerospace vehicle design problems. The award is not set aside for any specific business category. In addition to this contract, UW has several other active federal contracts and grants, including Indefinite Delivery Vehicles (IDVs) with the National Park Service for native plant seed services, demonstrating the university's expertise in areas relevant to federal agencies.

This project is focused of the formulation and demonstration of an adjoint-based approach for computing sensitivities of high fidelity multidisciplinary aerospace design problems that remain accurate in the presence of partial convergence of the analysis problem. This is an important problem since in many cases achieving full convergence for complex aerospace simulation problems is impractical with the result that the accuracy of the adjoint derived sensitivities is inadequate for driving design optimization problems. The successful demonstration of a technique for computing accurate sensitivities for partially converged problems will enable more reliable multidisciplinary design optimization and more accurate error estimation and uncertainty quantification techniques for a wide range of aerospace vehicle design problems of interest to the NASA aeronautics program. This project will provide valuable experience to the fellowship candidate who will benefit from interactions with NASA personnel and use of NASA facilities. Simultaneously, this project will form strong links between NASA and the university of wyoming in the area of computational science, which continues to be a focus area of the university.