This paper describes a turbomachinery blade generation system which integrates easily in a MDAO driven design process while providing the designer with a flexible yet parsimonious parameterization scheme along with insights gained from interaction with 3D geometry. T-Blade3 is an open source 3D parametric blade geometry generator which uses a novel parameterization scheme based on the specification of the second derivative of the mean-line and a continuous modified NACA four digit thickness distribution as B-spline control points. The second derivative parameterization ensures curvature and slope of curvature continuity on the airfoil surface which leads to a smooth surface pressure distribution. Use of spanwise B-spline control points ensures the creation of smooth 3D geometries and keeps the overall parameterization space small. The Engineering Sketch Pad (ESP) is an open-source interactive web-enabled solid-modeling system based on WebViewer and OpenCSM. The open- source nature of OpenCSM allows the use of user-defined primitives to create solid blade models using T-blade3 geometries. OpenCSM also allows the computation of the sensitivity of surface points to design parameters using a combination of analytical derivatives and finite differences. Thus, the T-Blade3/ESP combinations allows a designer to interact with parametrically generated geometries and make improvements to the design using sensitivity information and a gradient based optimization loop. Furthermore, ESP enables the addition of fillets to solid blade models. The resulting blades with applied centrifugal and pressure loads are then analyzed with a commercial Finite Element structural solver to get factor of safety relative to yield strength, natural frequencies and mode shapes. 


Integration of an Open Source Blade Geometry Generator Using a Physics Based Parameterization With the Engineering Sketch Pad

Division / Sponsor:
International Gas Turbine Institute (IGTI)

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/GT/GT2020/volume/84058

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