White Papers
Premium Optimization Package
Boeing White Paper: Effective Parallel Optimization of Complex Computer Simulations (PDF)
Read more about how Design Explorer works in this more detailed paper from Boeing...
Watch the Design Explorer Webcast Movie
The Premium Optimization Package is comprised of the following tools:
- Standard Optimization Package, including:
- Design Explorer SQP - Gradient-based optimizer
- Darwin - Evolutionary-base optimizer
- Variable Influence Profiler
- Prediction Profiler
- Design Explorer - SEQOPT
- DAKOTA Plug-In
Design Explorer SEQOPT
Design Explorer SEQOPT (Sequential Approximate Optimization) is a powerful optimization tool developed by Boeing for design space exploration and optimization. For many design problems, especially those involving expensive computer simulations, it is vital to have a systematic and efficient method for exploring the design space and finding optimal designs.
Design Explorer's key technologies are the systematic and efficient sampling of the design space using Design of Experiments (DOE) methods and the intelligent use of "surrogate" models for problem analysis and optimization. The smooth surrogate models serve as substitutes for potentially expensive and "noisy" computer simulations and make global analysis and optimization of complex systems practical.
Design Explorer can effectively solve many design problems that cause traditional optimization algorithms to fail:
How Does It Work?
Design Explorer intelligently utilizes surrogate models to accelerate the optimization process. The surrogate models are selectively updated and refined as the optimization process progresses. Global search mechanisms are implemented to avoid local minima. A final grid search gurantees that the best design found is at least a local minimum.
Proven Success
Design Explorer is the product of ten years of R&D at the Boeing Mathematics and Computing Group. The Design Explorer tools have been used successfully at Boeing to help design several different types of engineering systems, including:
- Aircraft configurations (including 7E7)
- Engine Seals
- Welding and Machining Process Design
- Helicopter rotors and space vehicles
DAKOTA Plug-In
Phoenix Integration's exclusive license agreement with Lockheed Martin allows direct connectivity between Phoenix's ModelCenter product and Sandia National Laboratories' DAKOTA (Design Analysis Kit for Optimization and Terascale Applications) toolkit.
DAKOTA is an open-source software framework that provides a variety of algorithms for optimization, uncertainty quantification, parameter estimation, design of experiments, and sensitivity analysis, as well as facilities for simulation interfacing and high-performance parallel computing.
Sandia researchers have been developing DAKOTA for about eleven years. Within the Department of Energy, DAKOTA is used at Sandia, Los Alamos, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories in conjunction with DOE's Accelerated Strategic Computing (ASC) program. It also has a worldwide open source user base.
A complete discussion of DAKOTA, along with white papers and usage examples can be found on the DAKOTA web site: http://endo.sandia.gov/DAKOTA
The DAKOTA connectivity plug-in is included as a part of Phoenix's Premium Optimization Package.
