English Abstract

Design Exploration based on Evolutionary Computation

Masataka KOISHI
The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., Hiratsuka, Kanagawa, Japan
Nippon Gomu Kyokaishi,(2012),85(9),289-295 General Review in Japanese

Since tires carry out many functions and many of them have tradeoffs, it is important to find the combination of design variables that satisfy well-balanced performance in conceptual design stage. To find a good design of tires is to solve the multi-objective design problems, i.e. inverse problems. Recently, multi-objective evolutionary algorithms are getting popular in many fields to find the Pareto solutions. In this paper, we introduce design exploration of tires using evolutionary computation and self-organizing map. A self-organizing mapiSOMjproposed by Kohonen is used to map Pareto solutions from high-dimensional objective space onto 2-dimensional space. The SOM can be considered as an inverse function that defines the relation between Pareto solutions and design variables. We can get useful design knowledge from the map. It helps design engineers to make their decision in conceptual design stage.

Keywords: Design Exploration, Evolutionary Computation, Genetic Algorithm, Self-Organizing Map, Optimization, FEM, Response Surface Method