Design-intention-driven manufacturing optimization of turbine blade for cooling performance enhancement

The effectiveness of film cooling in aero-engine turbine blades directly depends on the meticulously designed distribution of cooling holes. However, surface profile errors introduced by manufacturing processes create a discrepancy between the ideal design model and the actual blade geometry, making it impossible to fully implement the design layout in practice. In the case, drilling holes based on the theoretical coordinates leads to misplacement on the physical part and degraded cooling performance. To address this challenge, this study presents a design-intention-driven optimization method for the manufacturing process of turbine blade film cooling holes to enhance cooling performance. Unlike conventional methods that focus solely on geometric registration, the proposed method conducts a comprehensive analysis of blade clamping errors and surface profile errors. The methodology integrates thermo-fluid dynamic performance objectives directly into the manufacturing process control, bridging the gap between design and practical application. A performance-driven layout optimization is proposed to ensure the functional intent of the film cooling hole layout design is preserved. Machining experiments validate the method, demonstrating a reduction in positioning error of film cooling holes. Numerical simulations confirm that the optimized hole layout leads to an improvement in the overall cooling effectiveness compared to both conventional and simple geometric registration approaches.