Role of Conservative Moving Least Squares Methods in Reliability Based Design Optimization: A Mathematical Foundation

The response surface method (RSM) and the moving least squares method (MLSM) are extensively used due to their computational efficiency in solving reliability based design optimization (RBDO) problems. Since traditional RSM and MLSM are described by second-order polynomials, approximated constraints are sometimes unable to ensure feasibility when highly nonlinear and/or nonconvex constraint functions are approximated in RBDO. We explore the development of a new MLSM based meta-model that ensures the constraint feasibility of an optimal solution in RBDO. A constraint-feasible MLSM (CF-MLSM) is devised to realize feasibility regardless of the multimodality/nonlinearity of the constraint function in all approximation processes as well as the variation of random characteristics in RBDO. The usefulness of the proposed approach is verified by examining a nonlinear function problem and an actively controlled structure problem. [DOI:10.1115/1.4005235]