Salvatore Auriemma has passed his PhD viva on "Development of parametric CAD models for gradient-based aerodynamic shape optimisation" with minor corrections.

Gradient-based methods are the most efficient approach for soptimisation with very many design variables and has become a standard in aerodynamic shape optimisation of e.g. aircraft wings and turbomachinery blades. A major bottleneck is that current CAD systems only allow to compute the shape of a model, but not the shape derivatives, i.e. the rate of variation of the shape if a design variable is changed.

Salvatore was funded by EC through the IODA ITN project and was hosted at the French software company Open Cascade which develops the open-source CAD kernel OCCT. In collaboration with two other PhD students from the IODA project he developed a unique CAD system that can compute the sensitivities of arbitrary CAD shapes with respect to arbitrary design variables, a key ingredient for integrating a CAD description of the model geometry in a complete gradient-based design optimisation process.