Software System for Criteria Management in Multi-Objective Optimization Guided Design of Sequences of Materials Processes

"Austral Engineering and Software, Inc. proposes continued development of a software application for design criteria management in multiobjective optimization-guided design of sequences of materials proceses. This effort integraesstate-of-the-art-milti-objective optimization algorithms and visualization techniques with apropriate systems, materials, process and cost models, and simulation tools into the Adaptive Modeling Language object-oriented software environment. The resultwill be a powerful design environment that utilizes single-and multitradeoff studies, and determining effects of changes in design variables or optimization criteria on design metrics. PhaseII will continue development of computational and visualtechniques for communicating complex relationships among numerous design objectives, constraints, and decision variables to designers, using state-of-the-art multi-objective optimization algorithms and multidimensional visualization techniques. It willextend the Phase I proof-of-concept optimization algorithms, solution analysis techniques, and AML implementation, and will use these enhanced systems to integrate appropriate product and multi-stage process models for demonstration on problems ofsignificance to the U.S. Air Force. Phase II is expected to produce a commercial-grade software application for cooperative, geographically-dispersed, multi-objective optimization-guided design with advanced criteria management, design space exploration,and tradeoff and solution analysis capabilities."