Statistical sensitivity analysis considering both Aleatory and epistemic uncertainties in multidisciplinary design

Zhen Jiang, Wei Chen, Brian J. German

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

The performance of a multidisciplinary system is ineluctably affected by various sources of uncertainties, which are often categorized as aleatory (e.g. input variability) or epistemic (e.g. model uncertainty) uncertainty. Statistical sensitivity analysis (SSA) exists in literature for studying the impact of different sources of uncertainties on system performances. However, epistemic uncertainty, as an important source of uncertainty, is seldom taken into consideration. Applying SSA for a multidisciplinary system is even more challenging due to the complexity in system analysis as well as the coupling relationship between subsystems. In this research, we develop a multidisciplinary statistical sensitivity analysis (MSSA) approach to analyze the contributions from various sources of uncertainties. Both global and local sensitivity analyses are conducted; the former studies the impact of variations over the entire range of model inputs, and the latter compares the impacts of aleatory and epistemic uncertainties to facilitate decision making in further data collection for reducing system uncertainty. Two types of sensitivity metrics are proposed for MSSA: the extension of the traditional variance-based sensitivity indices, and the relative-entropy-based sensitivity indices for the situation with irregular system performance distribution. To overcome the computational challenges in MSSA, we establish a mathematical approach, i.e. multidisciplinary uncertainty analysis (MUA), for handling the complexity because of the coupling relation among multiple disciplines and propagating uncertainty across multiple levels (component/subsystem/system). An aircraft design problem consisting of three coupled disciplines is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed MUA method and MSSA approaches.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationAIAA AVIATION 2014 -15th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference
PublisherAmerican Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Inc.
ISBN (Print)9781624102837
DOIs
StatePublished - 2014
EventAIAA AVIATION 2014 -15th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference 2014 - Atlanta, GA, United States
Duration: Jun 16 2014Jun 20 2014

Publication series

NameAIAA AVIATION 2014 -15th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference

Conference

ConferenceAIAA AVIATION 2014 -15th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference 2014
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityAtlanta, GA
Period6/16/146/20/14

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Aerospace Engineering
  • Mechanical Engineering

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