Reliability-based multidisciplinary design optimization using incremental shifting vector strategy and its application in electronic product design

Use of multidisciplinary analysis in reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) results in the emergence of the important method of reliability-based multidisciplinary design optimization (RBMDO). To enhance the efficiency and convergence of the overall solution process, a decoupling algorithm for RBMDO is proposed herein. Firstly, to decouple the multidisciplinary analysis using the individual disciplinary feasible (IDF) approach, the RBMDO is converted into a conventional form of RBDO. Secondly, the incremental shifting vector (ISV) strategy is adopted to decouple the nested optimization of RBDO into a sequential iteration process composed of design optimization and reliability analysis, thereby improving the efficiency significantly. Finally, the proposed RBMDO method is applied to the design of two actual electronic products: an aerial camera and a car pad. For these two applications, two RBMDO models are created, each containing several finite element models (FEMs) and relatively strong coupling between the involved disciplines. The computational results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.