Deciding Degree of Conservativeness in Initial Design Considering Risk of Future Redesign

Early in the design process, there is often mixed epistemic model uncertainty and aleatory parameter uncertainty. Later in the design process, the results of high-fidelity simulations or experiments will reduce epistemic model uncertainty and may trigger a redesign process. Redesign is undesirable because it is associated with costs and delays; however, it is also an opportunity to correct a dangerous design or possibly improve design performance. In this study, we propose a margin-based design/redesign method where the design is optimized deterministically, but the margins are selected probabilistically. The final design is an epistemic random variable (i.e., it is unknown at the initial design stage) and the margins are optimized to control the epistemic uncertainty in the final design, design performance, and probability of failure. The method allows for the tradeoff between expected final design performance and probability of redesign while ensuring reliability with respect to mixed uncertainties. The method is demonstrated on a simple bar problem and then on an engine design problem. The examples are used to investigate the dilemma of whether to start with a higher margin and redesign if the test later in the design process reveals the design to be too conservative, or to start with a lower margin and redesign if the test reveals the design to be unsafe. In the examples in this study, it is found that this decision is related to the variance of the uncertainty in the high-fidelity model relative to the variance of the uncertainty in the low-fidelity model.