Applying classical optimization methods ( such as Gauss Seidel and gradient-based techniques ) on such experiments showed that those methods are not well suited to be adopted in " experimental optimization ", mainly due to noisy measurements and / or multimodality.
2.
The main objective of those experiments concerned optimizing the shape and / or parameters through mostly small modifications on the real objects, a " technique " they called " experimental optimization ", in order to reduce the drag, increase the thrust, and so on.