How HEEDS Optimization Works

HEEDS^® optimization begins within your preferred modeling and analysis tools, where you create and execute the analysis models needed to fully evaluate the performance of a baseline design. The input and output files generated during each step in the model creation and analysis contain the data that HEEDS will use as a starting point for its optimization process.

Next, within the HEEDS Modeler, you

• Capture the modeling and analysis process that HEEDS will automatically repeat to evaluate potential designs.
• Identify the project variables that will be varied and the responses of interest.
• Define the constraints that specify whether a response should be greater than or less than a particular value.
• Define the objectives that specify whether a response should be maximized or minimized.

Searching for Optimized Designs

HEEDS begins its search by selecting values for the project variables within the ranges you have specified. It creates new model input files containing these values and evaluates each design with the same analysis software tools that produced the baseline input and output files. After each evaluation, HEEDS automatically extracts the corresponding response values from the output files.

As the search progresses, HEEDS uses an intelligent mathematical process to discover relationships among variables and responses, and leverages this knowledge to identify higher-performing designs, until it converges on the optimal solution.

Other HEEDS design studies, such as Design of Experiments (DOE) or Robustness and Reliability studies, are performed in a very similar manner. The primary difference is in the definition of the sampling methods and in the post-processing of the results.