Cylindrical tube optimization using response surface method based on stochastic process

This paper presents the optimization result in the crashworthiness problem for maximizing absorbing energy of cylindrical tube. To simulate a complicated behavior of this kind of crash problem, a self-developed explicit finite element code is used. The response surface method based on stochastic process is used, that is especially good at modeling the non-linear, multi-modal functions that often bring about in engineering. The main characteristics of using response surface for global optimization lies in balancing the need to exploit the fitting surface for improving the approximation. It can be shown that how these approximating functions can be used to construct an efficient global optimization algorithm. Especially, with the comparison of result by classical optimization method, it can be shown that presented optimization method is independent of noise factor and existence of local minimum. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.