Design under uncertainty needs to account for aleatory uncertainty, such as variability in material properties, and epistemic uncertainty including errors due to imperfect analysis tools. While there is a consensus that aleatory uncertainty be described by probability distributions, for epistemic uncertainty there is a tendency to be more conservative by taking worst case scenarios or 95th percentiles. This conservativeness may result in substantial performance penalties. Epistemic uncertainty, however, is usually reduced by additional knowledge typically provided by tests. Then, redesign may take place if tests show that the design is not acceptable. This paper proposes a reliability based design optimization (RBDO) method that takes into account the effects of future tests possibly followed by redesign. We consider each realization of epistemic uncertainty to correspond to a different design outcome. Then, the future scenario, i.e., test and redesign, of each possible design outcome is simulated. For an integrated thermal protection system (ITPS) design, we show that the proposed method reduces the mass penalty associated with a 95th percentile of the epistemic uncertainty from 2.7% to 1.2% compared to standard RBDO, which does not account for the future. We also show that the proposed approach allows trading off mass against development costs as measured by probability of needing redesign. Finally, we demonstrate that the tradeoff can be achieved even with the traditional safety factor based design.
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September 2013
Research-Article
Reliability Based Design Optimization Modeling Future Redesign With Different Epistemic Uncertainty Treatments
Taiki Matsumura,
Raphael T. Haftka
Raphael T. Haftka
e-mail: haftka@ufl.edu
and Aerospace Engineering,
University of Florida,
Department of Mechanical
and Aerospace Engineering,
University of Florida,
Gainesville, FL 32611
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Taiki Matsumura
e-mail: taiki.matsumura@ufl.edu
Raphael T. Haftka
e-mail: haftka@ufl.edu
and Aerospace Engineering,
University of Florida,
Department of Mechanical
and Aerospace Engineering,
University of Florida,
Gainesville, FL 32611
Contributed by the Design Automation Committee of ASME for publication in the Journal of Mechanical Design. Manuscript received December 20, 2012; final manuscript received May 8, 2013; published online July 2, 2013. Assoc. Editor: David Gorsich.
J. Mech. Des. Sep 2013, 135(9): 091006 (9 pages)
Published Online: July 2, 2013
Article history
Received:
December 20, 2012
Received:
May 8, 2013
Citation
Matsumura, T., and Haftka, R. T. (July 2, 2013). "Reliability Based Design Optimization Modeling Future Redesign With Different Epistemic Uncertainty Treatments." ASME. J. Mech. Des. September 2013; 135(9): 091006. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4024726
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