MULTIDISCIPLINARY DESIGN OPTIMIZATION OF NOVEL OFFSHORE SYSTEMS: FROM CONVENTIONAL TO DIFFERENTIABLE DESIGN METHODOLOGIES
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This thesis advances the field of multidisciplinary design optimization of offshore systems by combining established methods with emerging techniques from differentiable modeling methods.The first part focuses on design optimization of two novel systems: the PEARL system with coupled subsystems, and the control co-design of wave energy converter farms. These examples highlight both the potential and the shortcomings of existing tools, particularly the difficulty of integrating hydrodynamics with other subsystems and optimization algorithms in the system design frameworks. The second part of the work surveys and introduces differentiable system design optimization methodologies and highlight several challenges in the case of offshore systems. To address these challenges, this thesis presents MarineHydro.jl, a new open-source hydrodynamic solver for wave-structure interaction, capable of computing hydrodynamic sensitivities through the use of discrete adjoint and automatic differentiation techniques. This enables gradient-based optimization of offshore systems such as wave energy converters. Together, these contributions enable a shift from conventional, isolated system analyses to fully coupled, differentiable multidisciplinary design methodologies. They establish a foundation for the next generation of offshore system design.