Aerodynamic shape optimization of BWB aircraft based on multi-zone collaborative optimization design method

The aerodynamic shape optimization for a BWB transporter was studied in this paper. The FFD parametric method based on NURBS basis functions was introduced to parameter the configuration. First, the influence of the design variable dimensionality to the precision of the surrogate model was studied. It is shown that as the dimensionality of the design variables increases, the precision of the surrogate model decreases sharply and the number of samples constructing the model quickly increases, referred as the curse of dimensionality. Then the multi-variable refined aerodynamic shape design of BWB (Blended-Wing-Body) transports was carried out based on traditional Loose Surrogate Management Framework optimization method, and a phenomenon of “precision frozen” of surrogate model was detected during the optimization. The Multi-zone Collaborative Optimization Design Method was proposed to overcome “precision frozen”, the optimization result shows that the Multi-zone Collaborative Optimization Design Method is reliable and efficient for the high dimensional problem.