Abstract
Hull form optimisation involves challenges such as large design spaces, numerous design variables, and high nonlinearity. Therefore, optimisation that only use global approximate models alone cannot yield desirable results. An information matrix-based method is proposed for dynamically embedded local approximate models (IM-DEAM) in this paper, which uses the Gaussian-function information matrix to extract one or more subspaces for additional sampling and a Latin hypercube design (LHD) for adaptive sampling. In addition, to prevent overfitting by global approximate models in some spaces because of the uneven distribution of the samples, local approximate models are embedded in the subspaces identified for additional sampling to enable accurate description of subspaces. The effectiveness and robustness of the method are validated and analysed by applying the proposed method to optimise mathematical functions and the hull form of the DTMB 5415. The results demonstrate that the proposed method is effective for improving the accuracies and can produce reliable optimisation results.