Automatic blade blend modeling and hexahedral mesh regeneration for aircraft engine optimization

Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) method has been widely investigated and applied in the aircraft engine design. In the conceptual and preliminary design phase of the aircraft engine turbine MDO, automatic modeling and mesh generation of the blend between the blade and the shroud are two key technologies. A robust algorithm should be able to perform well without the target recognition of the geometric feature of the blend. A strategy of hexahedral mesh regeneration based on the Topological Homeomorphism is presented in this paper, where improved parametric modeling can be obtained for the turbine blade and disk. The optimal solutions of low pressure turbine of an aircraft engine could be obtained to examine the feasibility and availability of automatic modeling and mesh regeneration. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method is capable of satisfying the requirement on material strength by optimizing the blade blend radius, where the total weight of blade and disk can be reduced by 5.882%.