Introduction to Optimum Design, 2nd Edition

14 Design Optimization Applications with Implicit Functions

Upon completion of this chapter, you will be able to:

• Explain what is meant by applications that have implicit functions

• Explain how to evaluate derivatives of implicit functions for your problem

• Determine which software components need to be integrated to solve your design problem

Thus far we have considered simple engineering design problems to describe optimization concepts and computational methods. Explicit expressions for all the functions of the problem in terms of the design variables were assumed to be known. Whereas some practical problems can be formulated with explicit functions, there are numerous other applications for which explicit dependence of the problem ...