A global sensitivity analysis-assisted sequential optimization tool for plant-fin heat sink design

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to suggest and develops a global sensitivity analysis-assisted multi-level sequential optimization method for the heat transfer problem.

Design/methodology/approach

Compared with other surrogate-assisted optimization methods, the distinctive characteristic of the suggested method is to decompose the original problem into several layers according to the global sensitivity index. The optimization starts with the several most important design variables by the support vector regression-based efficient global optimization method. Then, when the optimization process progresses, the filtered design variables should be involved in optimization one by one or the setting value. Therefore, in each layer, the design space should be reduced according to the previous optimization result. To improve the accuracy of the global sensitivity index, a novel global sensitivity analysis method based on the variance-based method incorporating a random sampling high-dimensional model representation is introduced.

Findings

The advantage of this method lies in its capability to solve complicated problems with a limited number of sample points. Moreover, to enhance the reliability of optimum, the support vector regression-based global efficient optimization is used to optimize in each layer.

Practical implications

The developed optimization tool is built by MATLAB and can be integrated by commercial software, such as ABAQUS and COMSOL. Lastly, this tool is integrated with COMSOL and applied to the plant-fin heat sink design. Compared with the initial temperature, the temperature after design is over 49°. Moreover, the relationships among all design variables are also disclosed clearly.

Originality/value

The D-MORPH-HDMR is integrated to obtain the coupling relativities among the design variables efficiently. The suggested method can be decomposed into multiplier layers according to the GSI. The SVR-EGO is used to optimize the sub-problem because of its robustness of modeling.

Citation

Li, E., Zhou, Z., Wang, H. and Cai, K. (2019), "A global sensitivity analysis-assisted sequential optimization tool for plant-fin heat sink design", Engineering Computations, Vol. 37 No. 2, pp. 591-614. https://doi.org/10.1108/EC-12-2018-0590