The adjoint library is enhanced with new functionality enabling
automated shape optimisation loops.  A parameterisation scheme based on
volumetric B-Splines is introduced, the control points of which act as
the design variables in the optimisation loop [1, 2].  The control
points of the volumetric B-Splines boxes can be defined in either
Cartesian or cylindrical coordinates.

The entire loop (solution of the flow and adjoint equations, computation
of sensitivity derivatives, update of the design variables and mesh) is
run within adjointOptimisationFoam. A number of methods to update the
design variables are implemented, including popular Quasi-Newton methods
like BFGS and methods capable of handling constraints like loop using
the SQP or constraint projection.

The software was developed by PCOpt/NTUA and FOSS GP, with contributions from

Dr. Evangelos Papoutsis-Kiachagias,
Konstantinos Gkaragounis,
Professor Kyriakos Giannakoglou,
Andy Heather

[1] E.M. Papoutsis-Kiachagias, N. Magoulas, J. Mueller, C. Othmer,
K.C.  Giannakoglou: 'Noise Reduction in Car Aerodynamics using a
Surrogate Objective Function and the Continuous  Adjoint Method with
Wall Functions', Computers & Fluids, 122:223-232, 2015

[2] E. M. Papoutsis-Kiachagias, V. G. Asouti, K. C. Giannakoglou,
K.  Gkagkas, S. Shimokawa, E. Itakura: ‘Multi-point aerodynamic shape
optimization of cars based on continuous adjoint’, Structural and
Multidisciplinary Optimization, 59(2):675–694, 2019