Improved aerodynamic design of turbomachinery bladings by numerical optimization

The aerodynamic optimization of a transonic compressor is reported in this paper. The Q3D Navier–Stokes solver COLIBRI is coupled to a gradient-based method (CONMIN) and to a genetic algorithm (GADO). The suction side of a 2D blade is optimized by using both optimization methods with a significant efficiency improvement. In 3D, the performance improvement is obtained by modifying the suction surface of a transonic compressor with a Bézier surface and by using the CANARI solver coupled to the gradient method (CONMIN).