EFFICIENT DESIGN OF PANEL STRUCTURES BY A GENERAL MULTIPLE CRITERIA UTILITY

Abstract

The development of the finally-selected design of an engineering artifact generally involves repeated evaluation and comparison of proposed designs, as progress is made towards an “optimum” result. This design synthesis often has to proceed in the presence of multiple and conflicting criteria. The paper describes the basic features of a software tool -GURU- developed to handle a general problem in design. GURU is capable of solving nonlinear, mixed-integer multiple criteria decision problems. The paper then reports the results of using GURU to investigate some alternative configurations of panel structures, namely conventionally stiffened panels, corrugated panels and sandwich structures. Integer variables are used to model the number of stiffeners in a panel and also the plate thickness for some of the examples. These alternative configurations are compared on the basis of three design criteria (weight efficiency, cost and volume of space occupied).