Multilevel Vehicle Design for Performance, Safety, and Maintainability Including Geometry Considerations

Principal Investigators
Panos Papalambros, Michael Kokkolaras (U. of Michigan)

University Researchers
Greg Hulbert, Matt Reed, Hosam Fathy, Zheng Dong Ma, Zoran Filipi (U. of Michigan)

Industry
Ramprasad Krishnamachari (General Dynamics Land Systems)
Nick Tzannetakis (LMS/Noesis)

Government
Sudhakar Arepally, David Gorsich (TARDEC)

Students
Kwang Jae Lee, Michael Alexander (U. of Michigan)

Army vehicles are designed for multiple objectives including performance, reliability, maintainability, and safety while considering a wide range of operating environments. In the past we developed decomposition-based methodologies for hierarchical, multilevel vehicle design optimization and integrated them with several design under uncertainty methods and numerical techniques for uncertainty propagation for a variety of uncertainty types. So far, we have not accounted for geometry, i.e., three-dimensional representation of the components comprising the vehicle and their impact on various attributes. For example, the location of engine, batteries, generator(s), motor(s), fuel tank, etc., affect maintainability, survivability, and vehicle dynamics in hybrid trucks; the configuration of the propulsion system affects thermal management and the design of cooling systems; cabin design of military vehicles and integration of tactical and weapon systems affect safety. The first objective of this research is to integrate component geometry into our optimal design methodologies in order to design for the aforementioned objectives. The second objective is to utilize/extend the multilevel design framework to predict the impact of unexpected events (e.g., blasts or accidents) to vehicle designs and its propagation to vehicle subsystems such as structure, interior cabin, etc. to assess effects on the soldier and create design alternatives for increased survivability.