A Schur-Newton-Krylov solver for steady-state aeroelastic analysis and design sensitivity analysis

This paper presents a Newton-Krylov approach applied to a Schur complement formulation for the analysis and design sensitivity analysis of systems undergoing fluid-structure interaction. This solution strategy is studied for a three-field formulation of an aeroelastic problem under steady-state conditions and applied to the design optimization of three-dimensional wing structures. A Schur-Krylov solver is introduced for computing the design sensitivities. Comparing the Schur-Newton-Krylov solver with conventional Gauss-Seidel schemes shows that the proposed approach significantly improves robustness and convergence rates, in particular for problems with strong fluid-structure coupling. In addition, the numerical efficiency of the aeroelastic sensitivity analysis can be typically improved by more than a factor of 1.5, especially if high accuracy is required. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.