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AAE 550 Multidisciplinary Design Optimization
Prof. Crossley

Fall 2025
HOMEPAGE AAE 550 WEB PAGES
[Welcome]
[Meeting Times and Location]
[Course Description]
[Learning Outcomes]
[Teaching Philosophy]
[Instructor]
[Teaching Assistants]
[Homepage] - [Schedule]

Welcome
Welcome to the public website for the AAE55000 "Multidisciplinary Design Optimization in Aerospace Engineering" course. While the course catalog uses AAE55000 as the course number, AAE 550 is the common way to refer to this course.

This course in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Purdue University is targeted to graduate students and senior-level undergraduates who wish to learn about engineering design optimization and gain experience solving multidisciplinary design problems using optimization techniques.

For the Fall 2025 semester, this course is available to on-campus and distance students. It is an asynchronous delivery course.

This public website contains basic information about the AAE550 class and the list of topics (found on the schedule page). Access to recorded videos, distribution of handouts to use while watching the corresponding videos, as well as both distirbution and collection of homework assignments, homework solutions, etc. are available from the Brightspace pages for this course (look for Fall 2025 AAE 55000-EPE/002-Crossley - Merge). Students must register for AAE550 and have a Purdue career account to access Brightspace. 

Meeting Times and Location
The Fall 2025 offering of AAE 550 is an asynchronous delivery course. There is no in-person meeting time for the course. For on-campus students in the AAE 55000 - 002 section of the course (CRN 25218), or for students in the distance learning section (AAE 55000 - EPE, CRN 24280), the videos for the course are available from Brightspace.

Course Description

AAE 550 is a fast-paced, graduate-level course that introduces students to the techniques of engineering design optimization, leading into topics needed for Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO). The course also presents application of these techniques to solve engineering design problems.

To accomplish these two tasks, AAE 550 has two overlapping parts. The first part of the course exposes students to basic concepts about and to implementation of numerical optimization techniques, assuming that the student has little or no knowledge of these topics. The second part of the course uses this knowledge as the basis for students to investigate approaches for multiobjective and multidisciplinary optimization.

Learning Outcomes
In this course, you will:
  1. acquire basic knowledge about optimization techniques
  2. become familiar with techniques for engineering design optimization
  3. understand which methods are appropriate for a given optimization application
  4. develop the ability to formulate engineering problems as optimization problems that are appropriate for a chosen method
  5. use the computer and available software to solve optimal engineering design problems
  6. practice effective technical communication by writing a report documenting your final project

Teaching Philosophy

My approach to teaching engineering design optimization relies upon having students: (1) practice formulating problems, (2) examine important features of various optimization algorithms, and (3) use computer tools to solve optimization problems. This does not lend itself well to traditional exams, so the grade for AAE 550 will rely upon homework assignments (which essentially take the place of mid-term exams) and electronic assessments (which take the place of textbook question-based homework).


Instructor
Professor William A. Crossley
ARMS 2023
phone: 765-496-2872
e-mail: crossley (at) purdue.edu

Office Hours

My office hours will be virtual via Teams to allow for a mix of on-campus and distance students at the same time. Please see the Brightspace page for day and time information and the Teams link.

For on-campus students, I will have an “open door” policy for drop-in visits. If my office door is open, I am happy to talk with you; if it is closed, I am not able to discuss at that time. I will admit that, with my responsibilities as Head of Aeronautics and Astronautics, I am not as available for drop-in visits as I would like.

Please email to set up a discussion at different time from office hours, of if you find that the open door policy does not align with your availability. I may not be able to accomodate all meeting requests.

Teaching Assistants

For assistance with the course, please use aae550ta (at) ecn.purdue.edu to start; this sends your message to the entire teaching team (TAs and instructor). The list of TAs, along with their contact information is available on Brightspace.

Office Hours
The TA team will host a mix of in-person, on-campus office hours and synchronous virtual office hours. These will be posted on Brightspace with days, times, room location or link to the Zoom meeting.

Modified August 18, 2025