Development of an automated non-axisymmetric endwall contour design system for the rotor of a 1-stage research turbine – part 1: System design

Secondary flows are a well-known source of loss in turbomachinery flows, contributing up to 30% of the total aerodynamic blade row loss. With the increase in pressure on aero-engine manufacturers to produce lighter, more powerful and increasingly more efficient engines, the mitigation of the losses associated with secondary flow has become significantly more important than in the past. This is because the production of secondary flow is closely related to the amount of loading and hence the work output of a blade row, which then allows part counts and overall engine weight to be reduced. Similarly, higher efficiency engines demand larger engine pressure ratios which in turn lead to reduced blade passage heights in which secondary flows then dominate. This article discusses the design and application of an automated turbine non-axisymmetric endwall contour optimization procedure for the rotor of a low speed, 1-stage research turbine, which was used as part of a research program to determine the most effective objective functions for reducing turbine secondary flows. In order to produce as effective as possible designs, the optimization procedure was coupled to a computational fluid dynamics routine with as high a degree of fidelity as possible and an efficient global optimization scheme based on the so-called efficient global optimization algorithm. In order to compliment the requirements of the efficient global optimization approach, as well as offset some of the computational requirements of the computational fluid dynamics, the DACE metamodel was used as an underlying surrogate model.