Key Advantages of 3D Inverse Design in Turbomachinery Design Process

Turbomachinery designers are under pressure to quickly deliver high performing designs. This challenge presents conflicting requirements such as high-efficiency, low cost and low emissions design. Engineers deserve the best set of tools to overcome the pressures and achieve successful designs.

In addition to this, many turbomachinery manufacturers are facing commercial drivers such as:

• Global competition. The need to compete globally means that the company’s products need to be superior in terms of performance, cost and of meeting the customer’s requirements.
• Price pressure. It’s important to reduce both manufacturing and development costs.
• Reduced time to market. This will help reduce design and development time and manage costs.

What design method should you use?

The design method for turbomachinery components has a major impact on the extent a manufacturer can deal with these commercial drivers. Conventional or direct design approach is typically based on some CAD representation of the blade geometry and iterative changes to the geometry using feedback from some form of flow analysis code.

The design process relies heavily on the previous experience of the designer, gained over many years. Experienced designers can achieve good performance. But due to the nature of the design process, designers tend to stay within their comfort zones and as a result, restrict the design space.

The conventional direct design approach relies on trial and error, between a given geometry and flow field. The geometry is first specified and its performance predicted using CFD codes.

This design approach provides advanced control over the design process as pressure distribution on the blade controls all the main flow phenomena such as secondary flows, shock losses and tip leakage flow. You don’t predict performance by CFD codes, you mathematically derive the optimal geometry.

You work faster and smarter.

You use fluid dynamics to directly generate the optimum blade shape.

You have direct control of 3D pressure field results in innovative design.

You apply design inputs in 3D to solve difficult flow problems.

You make expert design a transferable skill.

Our TURBOdesign technology uses the inverse design method that gives you the competitive advantage in the design process by allowing designers to rapidly achieve optimum process. The unique platform for rapid and accurate multi-point/multi-disciplinary optimization for all types of turbomachinery by using blade loading to “parameterize” the blade. 

This means that non-experts can use the tools effectively with minimal guidance and still achieve designs with best in class efficiency.

Problems solved.

The main benefits which solves the main challenges designers and manufacturers face include:

• Increase efficiency and enhance performance.
• Shorten development time that reduces costs.
• Have full control of the design process that allows you to expand the design space.

This means you get superior performance and efficiency to deliver innovation breakthrough solutions. TURBOdesign Suite also enables integration with ANSYS Workbench and SIEMENS PLM Star CCM+ to empower designers with full control of the design process to optimize your turbomachinery process.