Multiobjective Design of Macro- and Microstructures

Optimal, perfect shapes and structures have since long been a topic of interest to engineers, artists, and mathematicians. But what if we are searching for forms that are optimal concerning multiple criteria? For instance, in building structural design one might want to find light-weight constructions that are still stable. Or in drug discovery, we are often searching for molecular structures that correctly dock to one pocket but do not fit into other pockets. Automatically searching for structures that are either good in one objective or the other, or that can perform almost optimally in two criteria is the topic of multiobjective structural optimization. Typically a set of so-called Pareto efficient solutions is searched, that reveal insight in the necessary trade-offs and provide interesting design alternatives. To craft and analyze algorithms that search for optimal structures is the subject of the research in the multiobjective optimization and decision analysis group, and in the talk, we will discuss approaches, their theoretical limits, as well as applications to challenging design problems across multiple scales.