Section: Application Domains

Multidisciplinary optimization

A CFD program computes the flow around a shape, starting from a number of inputs that define the shape and other parameters. On this flow one can define optimization criteria e.g. the lift of an aircraft. To optimize a criterion by a gradient descent, one needs the gradient of the output criterion with respect to all the inputs, and possibly additional gradients when there are constraints. Adjoint-mode AD is the most efficient way to compute these gradients.