Design for Safety of Complex Structural Systems: Crashworthiness and Survivability

这笔赠款提供资金，用于开发基于计算机的方法，以设计和优化复杂的结构系统，以确保在发生坠机时的安全性、增强的耐撞性和生存能力。特别强调设计的演变和优化，从最初的概念阶段到详细设计的后期阶段。基于计算机的模型将允许在设计过程的不同阶段评估和优化结构系统的性能，包括概念阶段，以及不同部件以不同设计细节级别表示的阶段。基于小波的多尺度分析将提供数学框架，允许在不同分辨率水平上映射同一系统的模型。算法将适应已经在工业实践中使用的组件模型的相当丰富的子集，例如商业上可用的有限元模型。优化算法将被开发来处理结构设计中针对安全问题的一些特殊特征，例如设计变量多、函数不光滑以及计算非常昂贵的函数求值。这项工作最明显的应用将是在汽车和飞机工业。如果这项工作取得成功，将改进车辆的设计，以加强对乘客和货物的保护。根据这笔赠款开发的方法和工具将使工程师更好地了解坠机时的能量管理过程，并提供新的计算机模型和算法，以促进设计结构的过程，在整个坠毁序列中，为居住者提供适合居住的体积。

This grant provides funding to develop a computer-based methodology for design and optimization of complex structural systems for safety, enhanced crash-worthiness, and survivability in the event of a crash. Special emphasis is placed on the evolution and optimization of the design, from the initial, conceptual stages, to later stages of detailed design. The computer-based model will allow the assessment and optimization of the performance of a structural system across different stages of the design process, including conceptual stages, and stages where different components are represented in different levels of design detail. A wavelet-based multi-scale analysis will provide the mathematical framework that allows the mapping of models of the same system across different levels of resolution. Algorithms will accommodate a reasonably rich subset of the component models already in use in industrial practice, for example, commercially available finite element models. Optimization algorithms will be developed to deal with some of the peculiar features of structural design for safety problems such as a large number of design variables, non-smooth functions, and computationally very costly function evaluations.The most obvious applications of this work will be in automotive and aircraft industries. If successful this work will lead to improvements in the design of vehicles for enhanced passenger and cargo protection. The methods and tools developed under this grant will provide engineers with a better understanding of the process of energy management in the event of a crash and with new computer models and algorithms to facilitate the process of designing structures where a livable volume is provided for the occupants throughout a crash sequence.