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Shape Optimization of an Axial Compressor Blade by Multiobjective Genetic

Algorithm

Article in Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Part A Journal of Power and Energy · September 2008
DOI: 10.1243/09576509JPE596

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 599

Shape optimization of an axial compressor

blade by multi-objective genetic algorithm
A Samad and K-Y Kim∗
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Inha University, Incheon, Republic of Korea

The manuscript was received on 14 February 2008 and was accepted after revision for publication on 3 June 2008.

DOI: 10.1243/09576509JPE596

Abstract: In this study, a multi-objective optimization of an axial compressor rotor blade has
been performed through genetic algorithm with total pressure and adiabatic efficiency as objec-
tive functions. The non-dominated sorting of genetic algorithm-II has been implemented and
confidence check has been performed at k-means clustered points among all the Pareto-optimal
solutions. Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations are solved to obtain the objective func-
tion and flow field inside the compressor annulus. The objective functions are used to generate
Pareto-optimal front. The design variables are selected from blade lean and thickness through
the Bezier polynomial formulation. By this optimization, maximum efficiency and total pres-
sure are increased by 1.76 and 0.41 per cent, respectively, when two extreme clustered points are
considered as optimal designs.

Keywords: non-dominated sorting of genetic algorithm-II, multi-objective evolutionary

algorithm, axial compressor blade, efficiency, total pressure, response surface method

1 INTRODUCTION their computational codes, and also to optimize the

rotor. The efforts for design optimization include
In recent years, statistical optimization techniques single-objective as well as multi-objective and multi-
combined with numerical analysis methods for flow disciplinary optimizations. The blade shape defining
field have reduced the experimental expenses to stacking line, airfoil shapes, etc. are modified to obtain
design turbomachinery blades. The flow field inside better efficiency, pressure ratio, surge margin, etc.
a transonic axial compressor is extremely complex A set of papers contributed to single- and multi-
due to a three-dimensional, unsteady, and vortical objective optimizations of turbomachines to enhance
flow structure in the blade passage. However, with their performance. It has been reported that the effi-
recent developments in computational fluid dynamics ciency is increased due to the movement of separation
(CFD), the accuracy of prediction for the flow becomes lines towards downstream direction, reducing the sep-
acceptable for the purpose of blade design. On the aration vortex, end-wall losses, etc. Samad et al. [3]
other hand, systematic design process using various reported on the optimization of the stacking line of
optimization techniques is widely used, replacing the the blade with three objectives (i.e. efficiency, total
trial-and-error approaches for turbomachinery blade pressure, and total temperature) using several dif-
design. ferent surrogate models. Jang and Kim [4] and Yang
Flow analysis for NASA rotor 37, a transonic axial et al. [5] also reported the modifications of the stack-
compressor rotor, has been discussed in detail in ing line of the compressor blade by optimization.
AGARD advisory report [1] and by Reid and Moore [2]. Multi-disciplinary and multiple operating point opti-
As the test data are available in these references, mizations at fixed rotor rotational speed were reported
many researchers have made efforts to validate by Pierret et al. [6]. Oyama et al. [7] reported blade pro-
file modification with the help of the B-spline curve
of NASA rotor 67 to increase adiabatic efficiency by 2
∗ Corresponding author: Department of Mechanical Engineering, per cent. Chen et al. [8] optimized camber line, thick-
Inha University, 253 Yonghyun-Dong, Nam-Gu, Incheon 402-751, ness distribution, and stacking line by a polynomial
Republic of Korea. email: [email protected] curve to define the compressor blade and gained 1.73

JPE596 © IMechE 2008 Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy
600 A Samad and K-Y Kim

per cent improvement in adiabatic efficiency. Maxi- 2 NUMERICAL FORMULATION

mum camber location effect was studied by Chen
et al. [9]. Benini [10] defined blade section profiles NASA rotor 37 [2], an axial-flow compressor rotor
by the Bezier curve using multi-objective optimiza- having a low-aspect ratio, is used for blade shape opti-
tion, considering total pressure ratio and adiabatic mization. The detailed specifications of the compres-
efficiency as objectives for the design of a compressor sor are summarized in Table 1. The blade airfoil sec-
blade. He employed camber line and thickness profile tions are defined by multiple-circular-arc (MCA). The
as design parameters. Keskin and Bestle [11] reported rotor tip clearance is 0.356 mm (0.45 per cent span).
the Bezier curve parameterization of blade shape to The measured choking mass flowrate is 20.93 kg/s,
optimize with Pareto-optimal design. Total pressure which corresponds to 103.67 per cent of the design
enhancement modifying hub curve and sweep of a flowrate.
blade using the Bezier curve has been reported by Wu The meridional view and computational domain
et al. [12]. The optimization of a controlled diffusion of the axial compressor are shown in Fig. 1. Flow
compressor blade has been reported by Sanger [13]. parameters like total pressure, total temperature, adi-
Dynamic loading and total pressure loss optimiza- abatic efficiency, etc. in relation to the mass flowrates
tions were performed by Benini and Toffolo [14] and are measured at inlet (station 1) and outlet (station
Papadimitriou and Giannakoglou [15], respectively. 2). These stations are located at 41.9 mm upstream
Engineering design generally involves multiple dis- of the tip leading edge (LE) of the rotor and at
ciplines and simultaneous optimization of multiple 101.9 mm downstream of the tip trailing edge (TE) of
objectives related to each discipline. These design the rotor, respectively. The commercial code ANSYS-
problems, usually known as multi-objective problems, CFX 11.0 [23] is used for flow analysis. Blade profile
require simultaneous consideration of all objective creation, computational mesh generation, initial and
functions to optimize the system. There are num-
bers of solution methods and algorithms available for Table 1 Design specifications of NASA rotor 37
solving multi-objective optimization problems [16].
Mass flow (kg/s) 20.19
A multi-objective optimization problem consists of
Rotational speed (r/min) 17 188.7
many optimal solutions called Pareto-optimal solu- Pressure ratio 2.106
tions; therefore, a designer’s aim is to find as many Inlet hub-tip ratio 0.7
optimal solutions within the design range as possible. Inlet tip relative Mach number 1.4
Inlet hub relative Mach number 1.13
This helps the designer to find a global Pareto-optimal Tip solidity 1.288
front. Each design set corresponding to an optimal Rotor aspect ratio 1.19
solution represents a compromise of design objec- Number of rotor blades 36
tives. Elitist non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm
(NSGA-II) combined with the ε-constraint strategy of a
local search method is used for hybrid multi-objective
evolutionary algorithm (MOEA) [16]. Recently, Goel
et al. [17] has reported response surface and Pareto-
optimal-based multi-objective design. Marler and
Arora [18] presented a review of multi-objective opti-
mization methods for engineering. NSGA-II appli-
cations have been reported by Li and Kim [19],
Husain and Kim [20], and Foli et al. [21], who
applied multi-objective optimization approach using
evolutionary algorithm to heat transfer augmenta-
tion device, microchannel, and micro heat exchanger
optimizations, respectively. Hydraulic turbine diffuser
shape optimization was performed by multi-objective
optimization by Marjavaara et al. [22].
In the present work, a three-dimensional Reynolds-
averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) analysis coupled with
a multi-objective genetic algorithm has been used
to find the optimum blade shapes of a transonic
axial compressor rotor (NASA rotor 37) to enhance
its adiabatic efficiency and total pressure ratio. Blade
stacking line and airfoil profile are defined by six
design variables and modified with the help of the Fig. 1 Computational domain: (a) meridional view of
Bezier polynomial. rotor 37; (b) blade passage

Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy JPE596 © IMechE 2008
 Shape optimization of an axial compressor blade 601

boundary condition definitions, and flow simulation mass imbalance although the residual criteria were
are performed by Blade-Gen, Turbo-Grid, CFX-Pre, fulfilled. Time scale, root mean square (RMS) value,
and CFX-Solver, respectively. and number of iteration for those cases were changed,
A structured grid system with O-type grids at near so that the mass imbalance becomes less. In gen-
blade surface and H-type grids at the other zones is eral, the residual target was set to 3.0e–5 (=RMS) and
utilized. The O-grid having a width factor of 0.5 and imbalances were kept below 1.0e–2. The time scale was
15 elements is assigned to shroud tip clearance. The kept smaller initially and gradually increased to make
nodes in the blade-to-blade and streamwise direc- faster and better convergence. The number of itera-
tions are 46 and 119, respectively. The inlet and outlet tions was about 500 for a single converged solution,
blocks contain 30 000 grid points each and the main and CPU time for a single simulation was ≈8 h in a
passage contains 240 000 grid points, approximately. personal computer with an Intel Pentium IV CPU of
Approximately, a total of 300 000 nodes are used for 3.0 GHz speed. Benini [10] and Beheshti et al. [24] also
computations for a blade passage consisting of a single reported on the simulations for NASA rotor 37 using
blade out of 36 blades of the compressor considered. the same computer code. They used approximately
The number of grid points is selected after generat- 240 000 grid points and set convergence criteria to
ing different meshes with different resolutions at near RMS = 5.0e–7 and 1.3e–5, respectively. Figure 2 shows
wall, tip and other zones, etc. the RMS convergence history and imbalances during
The inlet total temperature and total pressure are iterations. The momentum and mass residuals are pre-
set to 288.15 K and 1.0 atm, respectively. At the outlet, sented in Fig. 2(a) and momentum, mass, and energy
the design flowrate per passage is set as 0.560 83 kg/s. imbalances are presented in Fig. 2(b).
A steady-state simulation with air as ideal gas is con-
sidered. The three-dimensional finite-element-based
finite-volume method is used to discretize the govern-
ing equations. Thus, the solver retains the geometric
flexibility of the finite-element method as well as
the important conservation properties of the finite-
volume method. Each node is surrounded by a set
of surfaces that define the control volume. All the
solution variables and fluid properties are stored at
the element nodes. However, various terms in the
equations require solutions or solution gradients to
be approximated at integration points. Finite-element
shape functions are consequently used to evaluate the
solution and its variation within mesh elements. Adi-
abatic walls with no slip and hydraulically smooth
walls are considered at solid boundaries. Periodic
boundary is set at the blade passage interface, and
tip clearance is modelled. In boundary setting, vis-
cous work is included, and 5 per cent turbulence
intensity is assigned at the inlet. The grid resolu-
tion is made near the wall region in such a way
that the scalable wall function can work with the
k–ε model. The k–ε model is stable and numerically
robust and has a well-established regime of predictive
capability [23].
The most difficult task in a transonic flow is to obtain
a properly converged solution. In the AGARD advisory
report [1], the conditions reported for convergence
are such that the calculated mass flow for the rotor
37 blade at the inlet should match the mass flow at
the exit within 0.017 per cent, and the deviation in
mass flow should be within 0.004 per cent for the last
200 iterations. Hence, similar conditions were checked
for the present calculations at the design flowrate. As
the current problem contains a number of different Fig. 2 Convergence plots: (a) residual history;
geometries to simulate, some cases produce a large (b) imbalances

JPE596 © IMechE 2008 Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy
602 A Samad and K-Y Kim

3 OBJECTIVE FUNCTION AND DESIGN

VARIABLES

In the present study, adiabatic efficiency (ηad ) and

total pressure ratio (Pt ) which are to be maximized are
selected as objective functions for the shape optimiza-
tions of the rotor blades. These objectives are defined
as follows
(Pt )(k−1)/k − 1
Feff = ηad = (1)
Ttotal,exit /Ttotal,inlet
Ptotal,exit
FPt = Pt = (2)
Ptotal,inlet

These two objectives are maximized through the

multi-objective procedure in this problem.
The blade profile is constructed by the third-order
spline curve and the Bezier curve and modified.
The parameterization of the blade by the Bezier and
spline polynomial curve gives two advantages: a lim-
ited number of points can control the curves and
thus, these produce a limited number of design vari-
ables and these produce smooth and discontinuity
free blade profile. The variables from blade thickness
and lean are collected from Bezier control points.
Blade stacking line is modified by the third-order
spline curve, which is used to connect the stacking
from hub to tip. The blade shape can be changed
by moving the control points of the Bezier curve. A Fig. 3 Definitions of variables: (a) blade lean;
Bezier curve of order n is defined by the Bernstein (b) thickness
polynomials
Hence, a single variable is considered for blade tip

n leaning. Similar movement of control points of the
C(t) = Bi,n (t)Pi (3) mid-span camber line produces one more variable.
i=0 Therefore, two design variables are produced among
the 10 control parameters: the variables at the tip
where the Bezier blending function is as follows
and mid-span of the blade to define the lean (γ ).
  Figure 3(a) shows the definition of blade lean. The
n i
Bi,n (t) = t (1 − t)n−1 (4) blade sections from hub to tip are interpolated by a
i
cubic spline curve.

n
The cubic spline interpolation is a piecewise contin-
If Pi = (xi , yi ), then x(t) = xi Bi,n (t)
uous curve passing through each of the coordinates.
i=0
These splines are popular because they are easy to
and implement and produce a curve that appears to be
seamless. Points [xi , yi ], i = 1, 2, . . ., n for the function

n
y = f (x) produces n + 1 points with n intervals. There
y(t) = yi Bi,n (t)
is a separate cubic polynomial for each interval, each
i=0
with its own coefficients, and the polynomials become
where t denotes the parameter of the curve normal-
ized in [0 1] and Pi are the coordinates of the control Si (x) = pi (x − xi )3 + qi (x − xi )2 + ri (x − xi ) + si ,
points. The control points of the Bezier curve are x ∈ [xi , xi+1 ] (5)
considered as variables. In this problem, to reduce
the number of designs, some control points are kept where coefficients p, q, r, and s are functions of
fixed and only five control points are defined each for x. Together, these polynomial segments are denoted
camber line and thickness distributions. as S(x). Since there are n intervals and four coeffi-
The blade tip control points are moved equally nor- cients for each, it requires a total of 4n parameters
mal to the chord line so that blade can be leaned. to define the spline S(x). To produce a piecewise

Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy JPE596 © IMechE 2008
 Shape optimization of an axial compressor blade 603

continuous function, two conditions are applied at

both ends: Si (xi ) = yi and Si (xi+1 ) = yi+1. The other
two conditions are produced by making the second

and third derivatives continuous: Si−1 (xi ) = Si (xi ) and
 
Si (xi ) = Si−1 (xi ).
The airfoil thicknesses are also defined by the Bezier
curve and the definitions of variables from thickness
are shown in Fig. 3(b). The multiple circular arc (MCA)
profile of the blade is defined by the Bezier polynomial
of five control points: P1, P2, P3, P4, and P5. As similar
curves are used for hub and tip, the total control points
become ten. Point P3 is moved normal to the chord
line (α) and along the chord line (β), and P3 at hub
produces two design variables. Other control points
(P1, P2, P4, and P5) are kept fixed. Similarly P3 at the tip
produces two more variables while the other control
points are kept fixed.
Hence, among the 20 control parameters, six design
variables are selected for optimization. Variable α is
considered positive if the control point P3 is moved
from the chord line and variable β is considered posi-
tive if the control point P3 is moved towards the TE of
the blade.

4 OPTIMIZATION PROCEDURES

The procedure is presented in flowchart (Fig. 4). Ini-

tially, the design ranges are set and design points
are computed by design of experiments (DOE) [25].
RANS computations are performed for the design
points, and surrogate functions are constructed to find
Pareto-optimal solutions.

4.1 Design of experiments

Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) [26], which is one of
the DOE methods and implemented in JMP 5.1 [25],
is used for this problem for sampling designs. In this
statistical sampling, a square grid containing sample
positions is a Latin square if and only if there is only
one sample in each row and each column. The gen- Fig. 4 Flow chart of optimization procedure
eralization of this concept to an arbitrary number of
dimensions is called Latin hypercube, and each sam- surrogate method is applied to evaluate objective
ple is the only one in each axis-aligned hyperplane function values. RSA is a methodology of fitting a
containing it. As the above concept specifies the sam- polynomial function for discrete responses obtained
ples or points distributed in space, this method is also from numerical calculations. It signifies the associa-
called space filing design. tion between response functions and design variables.
For a set of N design variables xj , the linear response
function is formulated as
4.2 Surrogate construction

N

The evolutionary algorithms require many evaluations Fi = cj xij + εi (6)

j=1
for objective functions to search the optimum solu-
tions. Therefore, to evaluate these objective function where the errors εi are independently distributed and
values, surrogate is constructed to avoid experimen- with zero mean and variance σ 2 , that is
tal or numerical expenses and to save time. In this
study, the response surface approximation (RSA) [27] E(εi ) = 0 and V (εi ) = σ 2 (7)

JPE596 © IMechE 2008 Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy
604 A Samad and K-Y Kim

In matrix form, equations (6) and (7) can be NSGA-II. These solutions are then refined by search-
expressed as ing a local optimal solution for each objective function
over the whole NSGA-II obtained optimal solutions
F = Xβ + ε (8) using sequential quadratic programming (SQP) [28]
with NSGA-II solutions as initial guesses. SQP is
E(ε) = 0 and V (ε) = σ 2 I (9)
a generalization of Newton’s method, which is a
gradient-based optimization technique. To perform
where F is a column matrix of M responses and X is local search, usually two approaches are applied [16]:
an M × N matrix of design variable values. The least weighted sum and ε-constraint strategy. In first
square estimate of β is approach, all the objectives are combined into a single
composite objective and optimum is searched and in
ĉ = (XT X)−1 XT y (10) second approach one objective is optimized treating
the others as equality constraints and the process is
The constructed second-order polynomial response repeated to all objectives.
can be expressed as Genetic algorithms or evolutionary algorithms use
techniques inspired by evolutionary biology such as

N 
N 
N
inheritance, mutation, selection, and crossover. The
F (x) = c0 + cj xj + cjj xj2 + cij xi xj (11)
crossover and mutation are genetic operators used
j=1 j=1 i =j
to vary the programming of chromosomes and main-
tain genetic diversity in population of chromosomes in
For a second-order polynomial model, used in
generations, respectively. A proportion of the existing
this study, the number of regression coefficients is
population is selected to breed a new generation dur-
(N + 1) × (N + 2)/2.
ing each successive generation and the generational
process is repeated until a termination condition has
4.3 Hybrid MOEA been reached. Here, a fixed number of generations
were used to terminate the genetic algorithms.
A multi-objective optimization problem stated above
is formulated as
4.4 Local search strategy
minimize f¯ (x̄)(M functions to be optimized) The different parameters – population size, genera-
subject to ḡ (x̄)  0 (s inequality constraints) tion, crossover, and mutation – are adjusted one by one
to suit the nature of the problem. NSGA-II gives a set of
h̄(x̄) = 0 (t equality constraints)
approximate Pareto-optimal solutions and a weighted
  sum strategy of local search method is used to improve
where f¯ (x̄) = f1 (x̄), f2 (x̄), f3 (x̄), . . . , fM (x̄) is a vector the quality of Pareto-optimal solutions. This strategy
of M real-valued objective functions, and x is a vec- is the simplest to apply and used in the present opti-
tor of N design variables; x̄ ∈ R N , ḡ (x̄) ∈ R S , h̄(x̄) ∈ R  . mization procedure. In this strategy, all the objectives
The present problem is associated with two compet- are combined into a single objective. As this strategy
ing objectives in which improvement of one objec- is easy to implement, it is used in this problem. The
tive leads to deterioration of the other. Each feasible weights associated with each objective are computed
solution set x̄ of multi-objective problem is either using the formula
dominated or non-dominated, in which all the non-
dominated solutions are called Pareto-optimal solu- (Fjmax − Fj (X))/(Fjmax − Fjmin )
tions. Vector x̄ i dominates a vector x̄ j if x̄ i is at least as w̄ = M (12)
good as x̄ j for all objectives and x̄ i is strictly better than
max
k=1 (Fk − Fk (X))/(Fkmax − Fkmin )
x̄ j for at least one objective.
And the objective becomes
The methodology used to generate the global
Pareto-optimal front (POF) is shown in Fig. 4. Objec-

M
tive functions are defined mathematically and evalu- F= Fk w k (13)
ated on the data obtained by numerical simulation. k=1
A hybrid MOEA approach is used to obtain global
Pareto-optimal solutions. In this method, first, approx- where w̄ is the weight for jth objective, M the num-
imate Pareto-optimal solutions are obtained using ber of objectives, Fjmin , Fjmax , and Fj (X) are the scaled
real-coded NSGA-II [16] for two objective functions minimum, maximum, and initial values of the jth
based on efficiency and total pressure ratio. Here, objectives, respectively. This composite objective is
real coded means that the crossover and mutations locally optimized using SQP. These optimized solu-
are conducted in real space to obtain a response of tions are merged with NSGA-II obtained solutions

Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy JPE596 © IMechE 2008
 Shape optimization of an axial compressor blade 605

and dominated solutions are discarded. The global optimization procedure, as shown in Fig. 4. To decide
Pareto-optimal solutions are achieved after remov- the range of each variable, the effects of each variable
ing duplicate solutions from the non-dominated on objective functions are tested first. This needs some
solutions. preliminary designs to simulate to set the ranges of
variables. The design variables for blade lean are pre-
sented in radians, and those for blade thickness are
4.5 Clustering defined in the form of percentage change, as shown in
Clustering is defined by the classification of objects Table 2.
into different groups, or more precisely, the partition- The surrogate approximate models are problem
ing of a data set into subsets or clusters so that the dependent, and proper distribution of design points
data in each subset share some common trait. Among in design space is necessary for better constructions
different types of clustering algorithm, k-means clus- of surrogates. A better constructed surrogate implies
tering approach is used in this problem. In this a better curve fitting in the surrogate model and
approach, clustering performs an iterative alternat- less error in predicting the optimum design. Among
ing fitting process to form the number of specified the available surrogate models (RSA, Kriging meta-
clusters. The k-means method [25] first selects a set modeling technique, neural network, weighted aver-
of n points called cluster seeds as a first guess of the age model, etc.) [3], the RSA model is the simplest
means of the clusters. Each observation is assigned to apply in engineering problems and is used for the
to the nearest seed to form a set of temporary clus- present problem. For shape-optimization procedure,
ters. The seeds are then replaced by the cluster means, the number of designs selected by the LHS method
the points are reassigned, and the process contin- on the basis of the RSA model [29] is 55 for six design
ues until no further changes occur in the clusters. In variables.
order to find out representative solutions from the POF, The response surface curve fitting parameters are
the global Pareto-optimal solutions obtained by the shown in Table 3. The curve is well fitted because the
2
local search are grouped into seven clusters applying Radj parameters are near 1 and the RMS errors for both
k-means clustering algorithm. objectives are in O(3). The NSGA-II parameters are
given in Table 4. The parameters are set in a way such
that the designs produce well distribution in POF and
5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION also the genetic algorithm is well converged.
Figure 6(a) shows the relation between the objec-
The validation of the present results of numerical anal- tive functions. The total pressure ratio and efficiency
ysis with experimental data [2] for the reference blade
has been performed, as shown in Fig. 5. The numerical Table 2 Design space
results for total pressure ratio (FPt ) agree well with the
Variables normal Variables along Blade lean
experimental data for the reference shape. However, to chord line (%) chord line (%) (radians)
the results for adiabatic efficiency (Feff ) are under- Limits of
estimated within a maximum of 3 per cent relative variables αt αh βt βh γt γm
error. The previous works [1, 10, 24] also reported the Lower −22.52 −6.00 −5 −5 −0.105 −0.035
underestimated results for efficiency. Upper 22.52 6.00 15 15 −0.035 0.035
Proper determination of design space constituted Reference 0 0 0 0 0 0
by the lower and upper limits of the design variables
is very important to reduce the iteration in the present Table 3 Polynomial response
surface parameters

Parameters Feff FPt

R2 0.961 0.854
2
Radj 0.911 0.846
RMSE 1.0E–3 8.0E–3

Table 4 MOEA parameters

Crossover probability 0.85

Mutation probability 0.2
Crossover parameters 15
Mutation parameters 150
Population 250
Generation 150
Fig. 5 Validation of computational results

JPE596 © IMechE 2008 Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy
606 A Samad and K-Y Kim

compared with the reference blade. The other points

behave in between these designs. Point H shows a high
efficiency but total pressure ratio shows less reduction
as compared with the reference blade.
Figure 6(b) shows the variable values for different
optimal designs. The optimal designs (A, B, C, etc.)
are shown in Fig. 6(a). The gradual reduction of blade
thickness variables (αt and αh ) has been noticed with
the increase in efficiency or moving from design A to
H. The optimum design A shows higher thickness as
compared with reference blade while design H shows
negligible change in thickness. On the other hand,
similar movement from design A to H produces grad-
ual movement of maximum thickness location (βt and
βh ) towards TE of blade. Design A shows blade max-
imum thickness locations at tip (βt ) and at hub (βh )
are moved towards LE and TE, respectively, increasing
the total pressure ratio. However, in the case of design
H, both variables are moved towards TE, increasing
the flat land area of the blade, which increased the
efficiency. For all the designs, the blade lean (γ ) is
moved towards the direction of rotation. This is also
reported by Benini [10] for the rotor 37 compressor
blade. Designs A and H have lower and higher lean
angles at the tip (γt ), respectively. The lean angle at 50
per cent of the blade (γm ) is almost constant for all the
designs.
Table 5 represents the optimum designs and the
RANS computed result at optimum designs A, C, D,
and H. These results show the well-predicted hybrid
Fig. 6 Results of hybrid MOEA: (a) clustered points in
POF; (b) Values of variables at clustered points
Table 5 Optimum points

Hybrid MOEA RANS Improvement (%)

variation shows that if one objective is improved, Optimum
points Feff FPt Feff FPt Feff FPt
another gets reduced. However, by the multi-objective
optimization, both objective functions have been A 0.8594 2.134 0.8588 2.114 0.74 0.41
increased in comparison with the reference case. The B 0.8619 2.127 – – – –
solid line in this figure represents the points obtained C 0.8645 2.112 0.8636 2.092 1.30 −0.64
D 0.8657 2.104 0.8637 2.098 1.31 −0.35
by NSGA-II with local search hybridization. Seven E 0.8666 2.100 – – – –
clustered points are shown by the letters A, B, C, D, E, G, G 0.8676 2.093 – – – –
and H. Obviously, point A shows a high total pressure H 0.8678 2.086 0.8675 2.061 1.76 −2.10
Reference – – 0.8525 2.106 – –
ratio and point H shows an increase in efficiency as

Fig. 7 Reference and optimum shapes of blades: (a) reference, (b) optimum-A, and (c) optimum-H

Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy JPE596 © IMechE 2008
 Shape optimization of an axial compressor blade 607

Fig. 8 Mach number contours at different spanwise locations: (a) reference, (b) optimum-A, and
(c) optimum-H

Fig. 9 Mach number contours on suction surfaces of the blades: (a) optimum-A, (b) optimum-H,
and (c) reference

JPE596 © IMechE 2008 Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy
608 A Samad and K-Y Kim

Fig. 10 Stream lines near suction surfaces of the blades: (a) optimum-A, (b) optimum-H, and (c)
reference

MOEA to find the optimum design. The maximum

improvement of efficiency is 1.76 per cent and is
observed for design H. This design shows a 2.10 per
cent reduction in total pressure ratio . On the other
hand, total pressure improvement is 0.41 per cent
for design A, and this design produces 0.74 per cent
increase in efficiency. The other designs (C and D) pro-
duce efficiency and pressure in between these values.
The percentage of improvement or reduction is calcu-
lated only for RANS computed results. Figure 7 shows
the optimum designs.
Figure 8 shows the Mach number profiles at 10, 50,
and 90 per cent of the span for the reference and
optimized blades. Near hub (10 per cent span), the
Mach number profiles are almost same for the all the
designs. A similar trend is also shown for the 50 per
cent span for all the three reference and optimized
blades. However, this trend changes for the near tip
(90 per cent span) region. A visible change is found
in the case of design H, which represents higher Feff
enhancement. The shock lines and also the separation
zone are moved towards TE. The shock intensity is also
reduced. For design A, which represents an increase in
pressure ratio, the change in contour lines is visible
but less as compared with design H. In Fig. 9, showing
Mach numbers on the suction surfaces of the blades,
the shock beyond 50 per cent span is moved towards
TE in all optimum cases. As design A has a low increase
in FPt , hence the increase in pressure has not much
affected the flow structure.
Figure 10 shows that streamlines near suction sur-
faces are changed noticeably by the optimizations.
The high-efficiency design blade (H ) shows the sep-
aration line is moved largely towards TE. However,
high-pressure optimized blade (A) shows only slight
Fig. 11 Pressure (kPa) contours on blade surfaces: (a)
changes beyond 50 per cent span near the tip.
optimum-A, (b) optimum-H, and (c) reference
Pressure contours on blade surfaces are shown in
Fig. 11. On suction surfaces, the contours near mid-
chord beyond 50 per cent span are moved towards TE The shock loss decreases by enlarging the front flat
in optimized blades. This shows the same pattern as portion of the blade profile. The reduction in shock loss
the Mach number contours on suction surfaces shown implies increase in efficiency. The maximum thick-
in Fig. 9. ness location is moved towards TE, increasing the flat

Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy JPE596 © IMechE 2008
 Shape optimization of an axial compressor blade 609

portion and hence increasing efficiency in design H work. The real aircraft compressor design includes
(Fig. 6(b)). The movement of separation lines towards low-weight and high-surge margin, which can also be
TE has also been reported by Samad et al. [3] and Jang used as objective functions for more significant design
and Kim [4] by stacking line optimizations to enhance and analysis of turbomachines.
efficiency. Stacking line and airfoil profile modifica- Blade loadings at different span locations are pre-
tions also produce weaker shock strength [8]. As the sented in Fig. 12. At near hub and mid-span, almost
blade thickness is changed and the blade is leaned due same loadings are shown for different blades. However,
to optimization, a structural analysis can be performed at near tip location (at 80 per cent span), a large varia-
to check the endurance limit and flutter of the blade. tion in loading is shown, especially near LE on pressure
However, this has not been performed in the present surface for high-efficiency optimized blade (H ). The
high-pressure optimized blade (A) blade shows only
some decrease in loading near LE on pressure surface
in comparison with the reference blade.
Fluid density on blade surfaces is presented in
Fig. 13. At lower halves of the blades, all the blades
show similar pattern of fluid density while the den-
sity variations are visible at the upper halves. The

Fig. 12 Blade loading: (a) 20 per cent span, (b) 50 per Fig. 13 Density (kg/m3 ) contours: (a) optimum-A,
cent span, and (c) 80 per cent span (b) optimum-H, and (c) reference

JPE596 © IMechE 2008 Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy
610 A Samad and K-Y Kim

high-efficiency design (H) shows increase in he relative

Mach number.

6 CONCLUSIONS

Multi-objective optimizations of a turbomachinery

blade have been performed by a three-dimensional
RANS analysis and Pareto-optimal design with the
help of genetic algorithm. The blade lean and thick-
ness profile has been modified to enhance total pres-
sure and adiabatic efficiency. The high-efficiency and
high-pressure ratio blades show that the adiabatic
efficiency and total pressure ratio are increased by
1.76 and 0.41 per cent, respectively. These blades pro-
duce 2.10 per cent reduction in pressure ratio and
0.74 per cent increase in efficiency, respectively. The
high-efficiency blade is designed by moving the blade
maximum thickness to TE and increasing thickness
with the stacking line leaned to the rotational direc-
tion. For the high-pressure ratio blade, the blade is
leaned to rotational direction without affecting the
thickness. Hence, the present optimization effort rep-
resents a set of optimum designs, and the procedure
applied in this work can be implemented in other tur-
bomachinery designs where multiple objectives are
involved.
Fig. 14 Streamwise pressure and temperature distri-
butions (circumferential area averaged values):
(a) pressure, (b) temperature ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

pressure and temperature distributions along the The authors acknowledge the support from Korea
meridional length are presented in Fig. 14. The total Institute of Science and Technology Information
and static pressure and temperature distributions (KISTI) under the 10th Strategic Supercomputing
in Figs 14(a) and (b) show the reduction in these Support Program and 2004 Foreign Student Researcher
thermodynamic properties for design H, which is a Invitation Program of Korea Research Foundation.
high-efficiency design. The high-pressure ratio design
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JPE596 © IMechE 2008 Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part A: J. Power and Energy
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