A two-level decomposition method for design optimization

In this paper, a two-level decomposition method for design optimization is proposed which is an extension of the model coordination methods. The method couples the global monotonicity analysis of the first-level subproblem(s) with an optimization method (single-level method) of the second-level problem. Three classes of problems are considered where in the first-level they have: (1) one subproblem with one local variable, (2) several subproblems with one local variable, and (3) several subproblems with several local variables. Some test results have been presented which shows the improved performance of the proposed approach over a conventional single-level optimization method.