Design and optimization of a stator turbine blade profile using control parameters

The aerodynamic design of a turbine blade is very important to ensure proper flow deflection and acceleration. Profile generation of the blade plays a vital role in ensuring minimal losses and maximum performance. The aim is to design an optimized blade profile of a turbine stator blade which is efficient and can be used in the gas turbine industry. The mean line prediction method is used to decide the blade geometry and BLADEGEN software for profile generation. This method being a preliminary step gave a design based on the mean flow which was not sufficient for industrial purpose. Thus a study was performed on different control parameters like stagger angle, maximum thickness and other factors that have the greatest impact on the performance of the blade. The CFD results of the base case for the pressure distribution, profile losses, velocity and blade to blade velocity distribution were compared to the theoretical calculation for validation. The design variables were set as t/c ratio and stagger angle which were varied on the base profile for finding their best combination in order to get an optimized design that fulfills the objective functions, which were minimum profile loss and maximum outlet velocity. The CFD results were obtained using CFX-ANSYS for both the profiles. The profiles were compared on the basis of the objective functions to validate the optimization. The salient features of the new 2D profile of the stator turbine blade were highlighted and compared to the base profile.