ABSTRACT CTS-9424512 HUDDLESTON MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY Mississippi State University and Allison Engine Company propose to develop a collaborative research project between personnel at the NSF Engineering Research Center for Computational Field Simulation at MSU and the Computational Fluid Mechanics Branch at Allison. The research topic will be the development of aerodynamic design optimization/improvement capability. This will be accomplished by coupling the versatile aerodynamic analysis capability afforded by modern Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) codes with nonlinear optimization techniques. It is anticipated that developed technology could be applied to a wide range of aerodynamic design problems and ultimately integrated into a multidisciplinary analysis and optimization framework. Turbine airfoil shape design optimization will be investigated and and novel techniques will be implemented to aid the design of turbine airfoil shapes subject to a prescribed flow path size, velocity diagram and specific design objective. Design objectives to be investigated include cooling air minimization, minimal gross weight and maximization of efficiency. This design topic will be used to stimulate research and focus technolo gy development aimed at producing a general aerodynamic design improvement/optimization strategy. Developed capability will help turbine engine manufacturers achieve the Integrated High Performance Turbine Engine Technologies (IHPTET) goals of increased turbine engine thrust-to-weight ratio for future flight systems. Research funded by this project is expected to produce significant contributions to current state-of- the-art capability in aerodynamic design optimization. Anticipated advances include (1) more efficient solution of the aerodynamic sensitivity equations, (2) improved geometric parameterization and (3) integration of design optimization capability with state-of-the-art grid generation and CFD simulation codes. Successful application of this technology to a complex aerodynamic device, such as turbine cascade design, will provide a tangible demonstration of the utility of advanced simulation methods to augment conventional aerodynamic design methods. Technology developed within this project will help provide the necessary foundation for future extension to multi-disciplinary design optimization.
