Humberto Gimenes Macedo

arXiv2026

Inexact Adjoint Gradients and Directional Tolerances for Full-Potential Airfoil Optimization

This paper develops a framework connecting discrete adjoint gradient-error analysis with an optimization method that uses directional error tolerances, and applies it to airfoil shape optimization governed by a conservative full-potential flow solver on body-fitted structured meshes. The theoretical part derives the reduced discrete adjoint formula for scalar objectives constrained by a state equation and analyzes how inexact state and adjoint residuals propagate into the reduced gradient. For residuals that are affine in the state variable, the gradient error is bounded by a linear combination of the state and adjoint residual tolerances. On compact sets of decision variables, a uniform version of this bound is obtained, leading to a directional tolerance condition under which the inexact gradient satisfies an exact descent inequality. The resulting inexact general directions method inherits convergence properties under uniformly bounded, diminishing, and Armijo-type step-size rules. The computational part combines a parabolic initial grid generator, an elliptic mesh smoother, and a full-potential discretization with artificial-density stabilization and approximate-factorization iteration. The optimization problem is formulated as a pressure-matching problem in which a class-shape-transformation airfoil parametrization is adjusted so that the computed surface pressure coefficient approaches prescribed reference data, subject to mesh-generation and full-potential residual constraints.

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arXiv2025

An Inexact General Descent Method with Applications in Differential Equation-Constrained Optimization

In many applications, gradient evaluations are inherently approximate, motivating the development of optimization methods that remain reliable under inexact first-order information. A common strategy in this context is adaptive evaluation, whereby coarse gradients are used in early iterations and refined near a minimizer. This is particularly relevant in differential equation-constrained optimization (DECO), where discrete adjoint gradients depend on iterative solvers. Motivated by DECO applications, we propose an inexact general descent framework and establish its global convergence theory under two step-size regimes. For bounded step sizes, the analysis assumes that the error tolerance in the computed gradient is proportional to its norm, whereas for diminishing step sizes, the tolerance sequence is required to be summable. The framework is implemented through inexact gradient descent and an inexact BFGS-like method, whose performance is demonstrated on a second-order ODE inverse problem and a two-dimensional Laplace inverse problem using discrete adjoint gradients with adaptive accuracy. Across these examples, adaptive inexact gradients consistently reduced optimization time relative to fixed tight tolerances, while incorporating curvature information further improved overall efficiency.

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