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Title 2D/3D CFD Design Optimization Using the Federated Intelligent Product Environment
(FIPER) Technology
Report
Number 2002GRC202 Date August 2002
Number
of Pages 8 Class 1
This paper describes the application and implementation of an aircraft engine turbine blade
aerodynamic design optimization problem using a response-surface based methodology within
the Federated Intelligent Product EnviRonment (FIPER) framework. The design problem
considered is a shape optimization problem, in which, important blade shape parameters such as
the stagger angle, trailingedge thickness, leading-edge radius, over-turning and wedge angle are
chosen such that an optimal design is achieved. In this work, the criterion for optimality is taken
as the blade-row efficiency. The approach used in this work to solve this optimization problem is
to start with a baseline design, perturb the variables within a given range of validity, conduct a
design-ofexperiments (DOE) using an automated, distributed analysis DOE tool developed and
generate a response-surface. The resulting response surface is used along with a gradient-based
optimizer to calculate the optimal solution. The core of this paper describes in detail the FIPER
architecture and addresses specific implementation issues in the context of solving the above
shape optimization problem.
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A set of components that provides the FIPER. For the purpose of the NIST project FIPER
infrastructure for federating services in a focuses on the services necessary for the design and
distributed environment manufacture of a product. Specifically, the domains
of Design for Six Sigma/ Multidisciplinary
A programming model that supports the
Optimization (DFSS/MDO), CAD/KBE, Engineering
production of reliable distributed
Analysis & Sensitivities, Pre/Post processing, and
environment
Data Repositories are addressed. Services are
The functionality to register services and provided by a service provider (which is typically a
resolve service requests computer program, for example, an engineering
analysis package, that has been wrapped to operate
Java and the emerging JiniTM technology are at the
within the FIPER environment). A service provider
heart of this system. Services are found and resolved
can offer multiple services, and the same service can
through a "lookup" service (Figure 5). New services
be offered by multiple service providers. The FIPER
are added to the look-up service by a process called
task submitted by the client is matched against the
"discover and join". When plugged into the
services offered by the various service providers, and
environment, the service first uses a discovery
the proper service is selected based on service
protocol to locate an appropriate lookup service and
attributes.
then joins, or registers, with the lookup service.
Services can communicate with any other generic Several engineering service providers are currently
service in the entire federated product space. In the implemented in the FIPER environment such as
case of FIPER, this is achieved by an IMM context, UNIGRAPHICS® for a variety of CAD and geometry
user, or service posting a need which is resolved by a services, PATRAN® and ICEM® primarily for finite
lookup service. The lookup service connects the element and CFD meshing services, ANSYS® for
requesting entity to an entity that has the functionality finite element meshing, boundary condition, analysis,
to supply the service. Figure 5 illustrates this in a and post processing services. Several in-house GE
given space with four services; CAD, KBE, proprietary codes are used as service providers for
Optimization and Robust Design, and the Simulation addressing the deterministic as well as probabilistic
Engine. Each service provider must be Java wrapped design of turbomachinery components.
in order to join the federation, but it can have its own
Members of a federation agree on the basic notions of
framework of execution. A service could be based on
administration, identification, and policy. The
RMITM, CORBATM, Java Native Interface (JNITM),
resulting federation provides the simplicity of access,
Microsoft COMTM/DCOMTM, or even simple socket
ease of administration and support for sharing
connection.
services provided by a large monolithic system, while
retaining the flexibility, and control provided by a
plug-and-play architecture.
Clients define and submit their jobs via web
browsers. A FIPER service manager then dispatches
each job into tasks. These tasks (or exertions) can be
executed sequentially, in parallel, or combination of
both in the FIPER environment, depending on their
input/output data dependency. If a parallel strategy is
chosen, tasks are dropped into spaces (by using
JavaSpacesTM, for example) for distributed
computation. Each service provider agent, if present,
picks up appropriate tasks and generates results and
returns them back to the space. On the other hand,
Figure 5: Web-Based FIPER Architecture FIPER provides a service catalog for direct task
execution. The catalog discovers all FIPER services
The basic premise of FIPER is that everything is on
and maintains a list of currently active ones.
the network and everything on the network is viewed
Appropriate registered service providers will then be
as a service. With this in mind, FIPER can contain
selected to perform tasks. Finally, a service manager
any "service" needed to support a product throughout
collects all the outputs and informs the FIPER
its life cycle. For example, services for customer
notification manager about the outcome. The results
requirements, design, manufacture, sales, distribution,
are presented to the clients when they request. FIPER
maintenance, and disposal can all be supported by
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also allows for real-time monitoring and editing of blade is considered (and this implies that 3D losses
jobs submitted through the system. This allows the are accounted for in the aerodynamic analysis). The
user the flexibility to modify a submitted job during process map used in the 2D/3D CFD based design of
any stage of its execution. This is particularly the blade is illustrated in Fig. 7. As described, the
important in multidisciplinary optimization problems, first step in the design process is to start with a scaled
wherein, there is greater probability for user errors or airfoil design. This design data is copied to the
service failures. If such a situation arises, the FIPER optimization workspace to be modified by the design
job monitor would be very effective in process. This is followed by an update process in
reviewing/editing the failed task and resuming the which important blade shape parameters are modified
execution of the optimization problem. to enforce blade shape change. This is followed by
the execution of a blade generation/stacking program
TURBINE BLADE AERODYNAMIC DESIGN
in order to generate the appropriate blade shape.
The design of a new aircraft engine from scratch is an Once the blade geometry is defined, the next step is
extremely rare occurrence in today’s competitive the generation of a 2D/3D grid. The 2D/3D grid is
environment. “New” designs are most often derived used in a corresponding CFD analysis to evaluate the
from existing engines. Derivative engine design is performance of the blade design. This entire loop is
accomplished by first scaling from an existing design, executed for each DOE run. The outputs from this
then optimizing this derivative geometry on the basis DOE are used to generate a response surface to
of a list of design criteria. Modifications from this optimize the design. In this work, due to the non-
scaled geometry are made as required to meet the linear nature of the transfer function, a 2nd order
design detailed criteria, such as component life and central-composite design6 augmented with a one-
aerodynamic performance. factor-at-a-time (OFAT) DOE design close to the
optimal point is employed. The upper bounds, lower
As an application of the FIPER system, a turbine
bounds, variable limits are chosen in order to ensure
blade aerodynamic design optimization problem is
an approximate transfer function that was within the
presented. Blade shape parameters (see Fig 6.) such
required accuracy bounds.
as the stagger angle, trailing-edge thickness, unguided
turning, over-turning and wedge angle are chosen Figure 8 shows the internals of the 2D/3D CFD
such that the blade-row efficiency is maximized. design tool developed within the FIPER system. As
Blade row efficiency defines the overall aerodynamic described in this figure, five major service providers
performance of the turbine blade-row and is an were developed to automate the 2D/3D CFD based
indicator of the performance of the engine as a whole. optimization process map shown in Fig. 7. A database
manager service to manage data transfer between the
aero database containing the scaled airfoil data and
the FIPER system. A morphing service to generate
the morphed or mapped geometry for each DOE run.
This service updates the airfoil shape parameters
(such as stagger, wedge angle, etc), regenerates the
airfoil design sections and then stacks the blade
sections to generate the 3D blade. A gridding or
meshing service provider is developed to generate the
2D/3D blade-to-blade grid. GE in-house application
is the service provider for the 3D gridding. Another
GE proprietary code is the service provider for the
2D gridding. A blade-to-blade CFD analysis service
provider is developed to execute the 2D/3D blade-to-
blade CFD analysis. Here, an internally developed
GE code is used for the CFD analysis. The code used
Figure 6: Turbine blade geometry parameters is a 3D structured grid Euler/Navier-Stokes solver for
turbomachinery blade rows. Finally, a post-
In this paper, the results of this optimization study for processing service is developed to post-process the
both 2D as well as 3D cross-section designs are CFD results to calculate the design objectives and
presented. In the 2D mode, only the cross-section at constraints.
one streamline section is cut and designed for optimal
performance, while in the 3D mode the entire 3D
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Generate
DOE Table Morph the airfoil
sections
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the nominal design as the starting flow solution (this network. As an extension of this work, currently CFD
technique was employed to accelerate the solution of multiple blade rows is being considered.
convergence of the CFD solution), the 3D-CFD This will allow the designers to consider the entire
design took close to 45 minutes per DOE iteration stage performance as the objective function rather
while the 2D-CFD case took about 10-15 minutes per than limit themselves to blade-row efficiency
DOE iteration. All the DOE runs were executed in estimates.
parallel on 5 HP servers distributed across the
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R. Sampath 2D/3D CFD Design Optimization Using the Federated Intelligent 2002GRC202
R.M. Kolonay Product Environment (FIPER) Technology August 2002
C. Kuhne