Turbine blade r-tree root design optimisation using

intelligent CAD and nite element analysis

Wenbin Song
a,
*
, Andy Keane
a
, Janet Rees
b
, Atul Bhaskar
a
, Steven Bagnall
b
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Southampton, Higheld, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
b
Rolls-Royce Plc., Bristol, BS34 7QE, UK
Received 16 January 2001; accepted 26 May 2002
Abstract
This paper is concerned with automation and optimisation of the design of a turbine blade r-tree root by incor-
porating a knowledge based intelligent computer-aided design system (ICAD

) and nite element analysis. Various

optimisation algorithms have been applied in an eort to optimise the shape against a large number of geometric and
mechanical constraints drawn from industrial experience in the development of such a structure. Attention is devoted to
examining the eects of critical geometric features on the stress distribution at the interface between the blade and disk
using a feature-based geometry modelling tool and the optimisation techniques. Various aspects of this problem are
presented: (1) geometry representation using ICAD

and transfer of the geometry to a nite element analysis code, (2)

application of boundary conditions/loads and retrieval of analysis results, (3) exploration of various optimisation
methods and strategies including gradient-based and modern stochastic methods. A product model from Rolls-Royce
is used as a base design in the optimisation.
2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Intelligent CAD; Design optimisation; Finite element analysis; Genetic algorithms
1. Introduction
Over the last several decades, the engineering design
world has been transformed by the introduction of
massive computational power. Computers are now the
principal tools for conceptual design, analysis, mock-up,
and manufacture. CAD, analysis, mock-up and assem-
bly checking are now completely carried out in a virtual
environment and this process is being continuously up-
dated [1]. In the engineering design community, the most
notable changes lie in two aspects: CAD and analysis.
Most companies use CAD and analysis software to de-
liver more reliable products in increasingly reduced time
scales, but the pursuit of lower cost and shorter devel-
opment time never stops because of the competitive
world market.
The design process is a recursive one in which changes
are often required during the later stages due to various
factors arising as the design progresses, and design re-
quirements often not only involve structure and func-
tionality, but also cost, manufacture and environmental
aspects. Traditional design processes typically treat these
areas using dierent models and requirements are often
described in dierent formats and dierent documents.
The use of nite element analysis has long become a
common practice during the product development pro-
cess, especially in the aerospace industry, where a large
number of FE codes, including commercial packages
and in-house codes are currently in use. The capability
covers stress analysis, thermal and vibration analysis, as
well as fatigue life estimates. Although most of these
tools have user-friendly interfaces and powerful pre- and
post-processing capabilities, the successful use of such
tools requires experience in the eld. These tools are now
used at all stages of the design process from concept to
detailed design.
Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 18531867
www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruc
*
Corresponding author. Fax: +44-23-8059-4813.
E-mail address: w.song@soton.ac.uk (W. Song).
0045-7949/02/$ - see front matter 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S0045- 7949( 02) 00225- 0
The study and development of computer programs
on mathematical optimisation algorithms has been a
long term eort since the early 1960s and a large number
of numerical algorithms are now available in the form of
standard function library APIs together with some de-
sign exploration systems with built-in algorithms. OP-
TIONS [2] is such a system which provides a exible
framework for incorporating user codes ranging from
very simple ones to complicated external software pack-
ages as well as more than 40 search algorithms and can
be used either interactively or in batch mode.
The optimisation process typically starts with the
parameterisation of the model and is then followed by a
search process using dierent algorithms and strategies
based on the evaluation of a measure of merit. Basically,
there are three dierent types of parameterisation ap-
proach currently being developed for design optimisa-
tion in the engineering community [3]. The rst is based
on using the coordinates of the boundary grid points in
a discretised domain as design variables, which is rela-
tively easy to implement but makes it dicult to main-
tain a smooth geometry and the resulting optimised
designs may be impractical for manufacture. The second
is based on using a CAD system. Although the advan-
tages of using a CAD system is obvious: smooth ge-
ometry, relatively small number of design variables, etc.,
it is dicult for traditional CAD systems to handle the
variations of topology due to large perturbations in
some dimensions. In addition, the underlying parame-
ters describing the geometry are not normally available
to calculate the sensitivities analytically. The third ap-
proach is similar to the morphing techniques used in
computer sciences, and is termed free-form deformation,
which is based on the idea of modelling the deformation
rather than the base geometry. In this work, the second
approach is adopted but the parametric modelling is
performed using the design automation tool ICAD

from KTI [4]. The dierence between ICAD and tradi-

tional CAD systems is that it can be used to generate
parametric models based on various geometric features.
Furthermore, non-geometric information can also be
integrated into the model and used in the following
analysis stages. The underlying geometric modelling
engine used by ICAD makes possible the smooth
transfer of geometry to analysis codes. The incorpora-
tion of ICAD and nite element codes into the search
process gives the ability to carry out search based on
high delity analysis results and to explore dierent
geometric features using a relatively small set of pa-
rameters.
2. Overview
A r-tree joint may be used in turbine structures to
attach a blade to the rotating disk. Mechanical loads are
transferred through the joint from the blade to the disk
[5]. The overall aim of r-tree structure optimisation
program is to enable the designer to explore dierent
candidate geometries at the preliminary stage, ranging
from relatively simple designs to rather complex ones, at
a reduced cost compared to using previous manual
methods (such costs have often prevented the explora-
tion of more complex proles and dierent size and
shape teeth). This process involves the use of feature-
based parametric geometry construction tools such as
ICAD and large-scale structural nite analysis packages,
along with an optimisation program implementing var-
ious search strategies. Although this problem is basically
a structural analysis problem, the strategy employed
here is rather dierent. The use of the ICAD system and
nite element analysis software together gives it the ca-
pability to model the variations parametrically both for
dimensions and in the topology used, and to analyse the
eect of geometric features on the stress distribution
based on the nite element analysis results. Further-
more, the above process may be incorporated into a
search loop to automatically nd the best solution
against pre-dened constraints. As considered here, this
is a 2D problem nested in the overall 3D blade/disc
optimisation procedure and uses well established 2D
criteria modied from 3D analysis.
The overall architecture of the ICAD based design
optimisation used is illustrated in Fig. 1. In this struc-
ture, ICAD is used to generate the model denition
based on rules which may be stored in a knowledge
database. The model is dened in a descriptive form
using the ICAD design language which is a derivation of
and extension to common LISP, aimed at geometric
modelling capabilities. This model is used to produce
geometry and related information. The geometry is then
passed to the analysis code along with any geometry
dependent properties to evaluate the design perfor-
mance. The optimiser is used to nd the best solution for
a particular set of design parameters. Parallel processing
can be achieved by using facilities provided by the
OPTIONS search systems.
3. Geometry representation using ICAD
The product design process normally begins with the
denition of requirements based on customer demands
and goes from the conceptual design stage to the de-
tailed design stage. Once the design specication is de-
termined, the conceptual design stage starts with the
implementation of the design in a computer environ-
ment followed by analysis to explore the feasibilities of
candidates. Analysis plays an important role in investi-
gating various design alternatives to determine the best
design. It is, however, very dicult, for traditional CAD
systems to capture design intent and to describe the
1854 W. Song et al. / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 18531867
functional relationships between thousands of entities in
a complex product model [6,7]. What is produced by this
kind of CAD system is the nal results of design, not the
modelling and analysis process, which is often docu-
mented separately. Whenever the designer would like to
review the design or rebuild the modelling process with
some even minor modications this usually takes a long
time. This kind of knowledge is documented or retained
as the experience of the designers which is dicult to
utilise during subsequent iterations by other designers.
Expert system and knowledge-based approaches have
made some progress in this regard. The intelligent CAD
system (ICAD) from Knowledge Technologies Interna-
tional is a combination of knowledge-based engineering
(KBE) and CAD technology and its generative model-
ling capability can be used to provide exible and robust
geometry for subsequent analysis.
ICAD is a knowledge-based computer-aided design
tool. Although geometry is the main object of manipu-
lation, the most interesting feature is that it can be used
to capture a corporate knowledge base along with best
practice and performance, manufacturing and cost cri-
teria into a complete product model, known as a gen-
erative model. The dierence between using KBE tools
and using conventional CAD lies in the following as-
pects: KBE is knowledge oriented, while CAD is ge-
ometry oriented; CAD works from the bottom up with
detailed dimensions while KBE works on conceptual
level and can harness all the design specications in-
cluding physical laws, material criteria, manufacturing
constraints, and even non-technical aspects. KBE uses
rule-based model generation methods in conjunction
with a CAD modelling engine supporting solid model-
ling techniques. The rules which are used to describe the
geometric relationships can be expressed in various
forms, such as equalities or inequalities using mathe-
matical and logical relationships. It can further make
some decisions about design on the basis of the rules
supplied to it. This will give the model some kind of
intelligence. It should be noted that there are other
CAD/CAE tools such as Pro/Engineer [8], which also
oers feature-based parametric solid modelling capa-
bilities. Moreover, most CAD/CAE tools also provide
their own macro languages that form the basis for the
extension of their functionality. The choice of ICAD in
this study is based on the exibility oered by incorpo-
rating the LISP language into the IDL that is used in
model construction.
Analysis based optimisation has been identied as
being able to play a signicant part in the process of
producing high quality designs against known con-
straints. However the embedding of optimisation in the
design process requires the parameterisation of the de-
sign and automatic updating of the model used in the
analyses. ICAD can be used to implement this capability
because of its object-oriented, descriptive geometry
modelling approach. This allows engineers to quickly
and accurately explore and test multiple what ifs
against all known constraints. This makes it possible
to optimise the design in a reduced time scale.
Here, the design of the r-tree geometry is carried out
using ICAD. The basic procedure of the geometry de-
sign falls into two steps: rst to identication of the
features and rules used to dene the geometry and sec-
ondly the breaking down of the whole model into several
modules, each of which becomes a building block in a
hierarchical structure. In ICAD, each of these basic
blocks is described using the ICAD design language
(IDL) as a generic denition which can be implemented
in the ICAD browser using a specic set of parameter
values. Thus the model is dened parametrically: dif-
ferent sets of parameter values will result in dierent
Fig. 1. Overall system architecture.
W. Song et al. / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 18531867 1855
designs from the same template. In addition, multi-
modality and backward compatibility can be achieved
by incorporating dierent behaviours into one model
with a single interface while only the internal imple-
mentation is modied.
A single basic tooth geometry is illustrated in Fig. 2,
which is dened in such a way as to allow the designer to
explicitly control the non-contact clearance and to avoid
duplicate entities in the model. This latter feature eases
the application of boundary conditions and loads during
analysis.
The acceptability of any r-tree geometry needs to be
checked since some particular combination of parame-
ters may result in unacceptable features such as inter-
sections between entities or the collapse of very short
entities. The handling of unacceptable features is im-
portant to the optimisation process as well as to the
analysis code. Using ICAD, geometry features can be
checked within the modelling process, as part of the
whole model and appropriate actions can then be taken
using preset default values, while signalling which pa-
rameter is causing the problem. Taking the modelling of
the base tooth as an example, in every step in the
modelling process acceptability is checked to make sure
an acceptable geometry can be produced, otherwise, a
geometry failure is signalled to the optimiser to cancel
the analysis. An example of unacceptable base tooth
geometry, in which two circular arcs are intersected, is
also illustrated in Fig. 2.
Here, the blade root and disc head geometry are
dened in the same way as the basic tooth, with further
parameters and rules being needed. Details are covered
in the following sections. Some of the quantities used in
the denition are not expected to change and are thus
held constant during an optimisation run, while others
which are identied as being more inuential to the
design will be varied by the optimiser in the optimisation
loop and are known as design variables.
The rst r-tree geometry tackled is a simplied
version of an existing r-tree model, which is composed
of straight lines and circular arcs only. The complete
geometry is described by approximately 20 quantities, as
shown in Table 1. The resultant blade/disc geometry is
illustrated in Fig. 3. Some of these quantities are iden-
tied as playing an important role in the stress distri-
bution and thus will be optimised against known
constraints. Others will be kept at constant values based
on previous experience.
Every entity within the ICAD model can have addi-
tional non-geometric properties which will ease the use
of the geometry in other applications such as analysis
and manufacture. This object-oriented feature enables
various information related to a product design to be
integrated into a single model. For example, to apply
boundary conditions and loads to entities during the
analysis stage, it is desirable to name the entities with
unique labels which can then be referenced later. Using
unique tag names on each entity in the geometry enables
the boundary conditions, load properties and mesh
parameters to be specied in batch mode.
Geometric quantities such as the minimum thickness
of the blade root, the distance between the centre of the
contact face of the tooth on each side, etc., are calcu-
lated in the ICAD model based on a mathematical
representation of the geometry. Some of these are trea-
ted as constraints in the optimisation problem and some
are used to generate the FE model or to retrieve analysis
results. For example, point coordinates are normally
required to get the stress values at those points. The full
details of the geometric constraints used are covered in
Section 5.
4. Finite element analysis
The r-tree joint used to hold a blade in place in a
turbine structure is usually identied as a critical com-
ponent which is subject to high mechanical loads. Most
often the attachment is a multi-lobe construction used to
transfer loads from blade to disk. It is generally assumed
that there are two forms of loading which act on the
blade, the primary radial centrifugal tensile load result-
ing from the rotation of the disk, and bending of the
blade as a cantilever which is produced by the action of
the gas pressure on the airfoil and forces due to tilting of
the airfoil. The resulting stress distribution in the root
attachment area is a function of geometry, material and
loading conditions (which are of course related to the
speed of rotation). It is known that some critical ge-
ometry features exist for the stress distribution in the
bladedisk interface.
Many studies into the stress state of the blade root
attachment have been reported, originally using photo-
Fig. 2. Base tooth geometry parameters and an example of
unacceptable geometry with xed end point.
1856 W. Song et al. / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 18531867
elastic methods [9,10], now mainly using nite element
analysis [1113]. Modern nite element codes already
have the capability of dealing with thermalmechanical
coupling and contact analysis between blade root and
disk head. It is now relatively easy to obtain the stress
distribution in the attachment area using commercial FE
codes. Also many in-house FE codes exist to handle
corporate-specic problems (these have some advanta-
ges over commercial tools among which the most no-
table is complete control over the source code).
Although there are many kinds of code available, the
general procedure of nite element analysis is almost
always as follows:
(1) create the geometry, or import the geometry from
another CAD system;
(2) apply the boundary conditions and loads;
(3) mesh the geometry;
(4) solve the problem and retrieve the results.
Most FE codes support batch running of the analysis
and this allows the analysis to be embedded into the
overall optimisation loop. To smoothly couple the
modelling process and analysis, however, is not an easy
task. It involves the transfer of the geometry itself and
related geometry dependent properties to the analysis
code, in this case, the nite element software.
It has been shown from previous preliminary opti-
misation work that it is possible to reduce the number of
teeth in a r-tree joint. From aerodynamics, a constant
space/chord ratio ensures a constant lift coecient, and
it is thus possible to trade blade number for blade chord.
Consequently a reduction in blade number will cause an
increase of centrifugal load transferring to the r-tree
Table 1
Blade root/disk head geometry parameters
Variable Name Type
Skew (b) () Root skew angle Variable
Nteeth Number of teeth Variable
Rwa () Root wedge angle Variable
Alor (L) (mm) Axial length of root Variable
Snw (mm) Shank neck width Variable
Fsw (mm) Fir-tree shoulder width Variable
Rcrest (mm) Fir-tree tooth crest radius Variable
Rtrough (mm) Fir-tree tooth trough radius Variable
Bp 1, 2 (mm) Blade tooth pitch Variable
Btcr (mm) Bottom tooth crest radius Variable
Cpw (mm) Cooling passage width Variable
Bglr (R1) (mm) Bucket groove lower radius Variable
Bgur (R2) (mm) Bucket groove upper radius Variable
Dtp 1, 2 (mm) Disk tooth pitch Variable
Fcrest (mm) Disk tooth crest radius Variable
Ftrough (mm) Disk tooth trough radius Variable
Nblades Number of blades Parameter
Drad (mm) Disk radius Parameter
Ninc Number of blades inclusive Parameter
Rtsn (mm) Radius to shank neck Parameter
Nblades Number of blades Parameter
Drad (mm) Disk radius Parameter
Snfr (R) (mm) Shank neck llet radius Parameter
Tfa (/) () Top ank angle Parameter
Ufa (c) () Under ank angle Parameter
Ncfc (mm) Non-contact face clearance Parameter
Bac (Ca) (mm) Blade axial chord Parameter
Cpa (mm
2
) Cooling passage area Parameter
Tfa (/) () Top ank angle Parameter
Ufa (c) () Under ank angle Parameter
Fdcr (mm) First disk crest radius Parameter
Inr (mm) Inner radius Parameter
Dhnw (D) (mm) Disk head neck width Derived
Bga (mm
2
) Bucket groove area Derived
Bch (H) (mm) Bottom-to-contact height Derived
Bl (mm) Bedding length Derived
Fh (mm) Fir-tree height Derived
W. Song et al. / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 18531867 1857
root. The root will have to be redesigned to cope with
the larger load. At the same time, a reduced number of
blades leaves more disc material between adjacent r-
tree root slots, and the wider disc post thus allows a
bigger tooth design and this makes a further reduction
of r-tree teeth numbers viable. The reduced number of
teeth will bring further cost savings.
The loading on the root is mainly due to centrifugal
load which is dependent on the mass of the whole blade.
The design of the r-tree root involves an iterative
process of controlling the blade mass, which incorpo-
rates the root mass. Also some key features, such as the
llet radius, play very important roles in the stress dis-
tribution in notch regions. Thus a set of competitive
constraints ranging from geometrical, mechanical,
cooling requirements, etc., is established for use in ex-
ploration of various design candidates for the r-tree
root. Finite element analysis is then utilised to obtain the
resulting stress distributions. This further complicates
the situation. A traditional manual method is now
too slow for this process and thus automation is re-
quired. Four types of constraints are used to check the
design:
Crushing stress describes the direct tensile stress on
the teeth: bedding width is the main factor aecting
the stress.
Unzipping can occur after a blade release: the disc
post on either side of the released blade are then sub-
ject to high tensile and bending stresses. The disc post
must be able to withstand these stresses in order to
avoid a progressive unzipping and release of all
the blades.
Disc neck creep: the disc posts are subject to direct
tensile stress which causes material creep. Too much
creep, combined with low cycle fatigue, can dramat-
ically reduce the component life.
Peak stresses: peak stresses occur at the inner llet ra-
dii of both the blade and the disc. If the llet radii are
too small and produce unacceptable peak stresses,
some bedding width has to be sacriced to make
them bigger.
Apart from the above constraints, which are used to
check the candidate designs, some others are used to
check the optimised result. These include vibration
limits, neck stress, etc. From a preliminary blade num-
ber optimisation, these criteria are not deemed a sig-
nicant constraint here.
As the r-tree geometry is constant along the root
centre line, it is possible to think of the stresses as 2D.
However, the loading applied along the root centre line
is not uniform, so strictly speaking, the distribution of
stresses will be 3D. Nonetheless, it is still possible to
assume that each section behaves essentially as a 2D
problem with dierent loadings applied to it. The dif-
ference of loading on each section is aected by the ex-
istence of skew angle which will increase the peak
stresses in the obtuse corners of the blade root and the
acute corners of the disk head. From previous root
analysis research, it is feasible and convenient to use
a factor to estimate the peak stresses at each notch of
the blade and disc, and this factor takes dierent values
for dierent teeth.
Also, it is known from previous work using photo-
elastic and nite element methods, that the distribution
of centrifugal load between the teeth is very non-uni-
form and the top tooth may take a signicant portion of
the load. This feature allows the possibility of using
dierent tooth sizes. The system implemented here also
allows designers to explore the eect of varying the
number of teeth, but this may cause diculties when
gradient-based methods are used for optimisation.
Both a one sector model and a three sector model are
considered when estimating the mechanical constraints,
the one sector model for the estimation of maximum
notch point stresses, crushing stresses and blade/disk
neck mean stresses and the three sector model for the
estimation of unzipping stresses. Typical FE results are
illustrated in Fig. 4a and b, for the one sector model and
three sector model, respectively. In general, nite ele-
ment analysis is computationally expensive, thus a
compromise between accuracy and computation cost
should always be made to obtain acceptable results as
quickly as possible when this is embedded in an opti-
misation run. This compromise is made by an appro-
priate choice of mesh density.
Fig. 3. Geometry denition of a (a) typical blade root and (b)
typical disk head.
1858 W. Song et al. / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 18531867
The whole process from the importing of geometry,
application of boundary conditions and loading, to re-
sults retrieval is implemented here as a SC03 Plugin,
which is a facility provided by the RR in-house FEA
code SC03 to extend the capability of its core func-
tionality. A command le is used by SC03 to carry out
jobs ranging from importing geometry from IGES les,
applying boundary conditions and loads, to retrieving
stress results.
5. Optimisation
Here two dierent optimisation problems were
tackled using population based genetic algorithms (GAs)
and gradient-based methods. One was to minimise the
area outside of the last continuous radius of the turbine
disc for the 2D case, which is proportional to the rim
load by virtue of the constant axial length. This quantity
is referred to as the r-tree frontal area in the following
Fig. 4. Typical stress eld for (a) single blade and (b) three blades with the middle out.
W. Song et al. / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 18531867 1859
sections. The number of teeth is treated as a design
variable in this problem and the number of constraints is
dependent on the number of teeth. The other was to nd
the optimum tooth prole to minimise the maximum
notch stress. The design variables (Table 2) and con-
straints (Table 3) used in the second problem are a
subset of those dened in the rst problem (which has 14
design variables and up to 53 constraints for a three-
tooth design) although the goals are dierent.
The constraints are divided into two categories,
geometric and mechanical, which are summarized in
Table 4 along with the normalized values for the initial
design. For the meaning of symbols used in this section,
please see Fig. 3a and b. The normalization adopted
here is described as follows for upper and lower limits u
and l, respectively:
a. constraints with upper bounds only:
y
norm

y=u; u 6 0
y; u 0
;

b. constraints with lower bounds only:

y
norm

l=y; y 6 0; l > 0
y=l; l < 0 or y 0
y; l 0
;
8
<
:
c. constraints with both upper and lower bounds:
y
norm
2
y l
u l

1:
These dierent formula will make it possible for all
normalized constraints to have consistent behaviour
when the design is moving from an infeasible region
towards feasibility, and to have the values of )1 or 1 at
the boundary of the constraints.
5.1. Mesh density parameters
As mentioned earlier, it is necessary to establish the
appropriate values for mesh control parameters. The
purpose is to nd a compromise between the high
computational costs that are incurred for very ne me-
shes and the accuracy required to capture the maximum
stresses in the notch area. Therefore, the local and global
Table 2
Denition of optimisation problems
Variables Number of vari-
ables
6 14
Tooth prole parameters
Root wedge angle () 2040 2040
Tooth pitch (mm) 2.04.0 2.04.0
Blade crest radius (mm) 0.21.0 0.21.0
Blade trough radius (mm) 0.21.0 0.21.0
Disk crest radius (mm) 0.21.0 0.21.0
Disk trough radius (mm) 0.21.0 0.21.0
Fir-tree root/disk head parameters
Skew angle () [15]
a
1020
Axial length of root (mm) [20] 1525
Shank neck width (mm) [6.7615] 6.57.5
Fir-tree shoulder width (mm) [9.8943] 812
Bottom tooth crest radius (mm) [1.0668] 0.81.2
Cooling passage width (mm) [1.3455] 1.21.5
Bucket groove lower radius (mm) [3.5] 3.04.0
Bucket groove upper radius (mm) [2.2] 1.52.5
a
[ ] indicates value when not used in optimisation.
Table 3
Constraints and objective function applied in the optimisation problems
Number Constraints Number of variables
6 14
1 R1=R2
2 H=D
3 DP=F
45 min < DP < max
6 Lca
7 RSA
8 Minimum serration pitch
9 Bottom neck width > pitch
10 Minimum wall thickness
11 Bucket groove area > cooling passage area
1223 Notch stresses
2435 Section stresses
3643 Crushing stresses
4445 Bucket groove stresses
4653 Unzipping stresses
Objective function Maximum notch stress Fir-tree frontal area
1860 W. Song et al. / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 18531867
eects of mesh density must be studied. Following the
set-up of the system, a series of systematic evaluations
has been carried out to establish appropriate mesh
density parameter values and to gain experience on the
eects of design variables changes. These were per-
formed by varying the mesh density control parameters
while holding all others constant. Two mesh control
parameters, the global and local edge node spacing were
chosen. Reducing the notch edge node spacing increases
the mesh density and therefore reduces the perturba-
tions in maximum notch stress. These studies resulted
in the use of 0.001 mm for both global and local edge
node spacing. The parameter study also revealed the
eect of dierent geometric features on the stress dis-
tribution within the structure which are summarized
in Table 5. It can be also seen from the parameter
study results that the notch stress on the second tooth
takes the largest value, as already implied from previ-
ous work [10]: this aspect makes it desirable to design
each tooth using dierent values of tooth prole pa-
rameters.
5.2. Optimisation
The optimisation is performed here using the OP-
TIONS software package [2] which provides designers
with a exible structure for incorporating problem spe-
cic code as well as more than 40 optimisation algo-
rithms. The critical parameters to be optimised, known
as design variables, are stored in a design database,
which also includes the objective, constraints and limits.
The design variables are transferred to ICAD by means
of a property list le which contains a series of pairs with
alternating names and values. This le is updated during
the process of optimisation and reects the current
conguration. The geometry le produced by ICAD is
then passed to the FE code SC03 which is executed by a
command le. The analysis results are written out to
another le, which is read in by the optimisation code.
The design variables are then modied according to the
optimisation strategy in use until convergence or a
specied number of loops has been executed. The pro-
gram structure is illustrated in Fig. 5.
Due to the presence of a discrete design variable (the
number of teeth), most gradient based optimisa-
tion techniques will not work directly here. Therefore a
two-stage strategy of combining a GAs with gradient
search was used in this problem. A typical GA (as dis-
cussed by Goldberg [14]) is rst employed in an attempt
to give a fairly even coverage on the search space, and
then gradient based search methods are applied on
promising individuals with the number of teeth xed.
Table 4
Normalized constraint vector for the base design
Number Name of constraint Numeric values
Lower bound Value Upper bound
1 Ratio of R1 to R2 R1=R2 )1.0 )0.8642
2 Ratio of H to D H=D )1.0 )0.8955
3 Ratio of R1 to disk trough R1=Ftrough )1.0 )0.5268
4 Maximum ratio of tooth pitch to disk trough
DP=Ftroughmax
1.4779 1.0
5 Minimum ratio of tooth pitch to disk trough
DP=Ftroughmin
)1.0 )0.5467
6 Ratio of axial length to blade axial chord [LCA] )1.0 )0.4961
7 Root stagger angle [RSA] 0.7499 1.0
8 Ratio of blade/disk serration pitch [PMIN] )1.0 )0.4540
9 Ration of blade bottom neck width to tooth pitch
[BNP]
)1.0 )1.1474
10 Minimum wall thickness of bottom blade notch
[BNMIN]
)1.0 )1.3038
11 Ratio of bucket groove region area to cooling passage
area [AR]
)1.0 )1.0900
1219 Maximum blade notch stress [NBL(R)(2
a
)]
b
)1.0 0.9270 1.0
2023 Maximum disk notch stress [NDL(R)(3)] )1.0 0.9948 1.0
2429 Maximum blade section stress [SB(1)] )1.0 0.6931 1.0
2935 Maximum disk section stress [SD(4)] )1.0 0.5623 1.0
3643 Maximum crushing stress [CS(1)] )1.0 0.6514 1.0
4445 Maximum bucket groove stress )1.0 0.9023 1.0
4653 Maximum unzipping stress [UZP(1)] )1.0 0.3688 1.0
a
The numbers in bracket indicate the number of the tooth or the section where the maximum stress occurs.
b
For the purpose of compactness, only the maximum stresses are shown in the table.
W. Song et al. / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 18531867 1861
One of the considerations here is that GAs are capable
of dealing with discrete design variables. Another con-
sideration is that as the GA proceeds, the population
tends to saturate with designs close to all the likely op-
tima including sub-optimal and globally optimum de-
signs, while gradient based methods are more suited to
Table 5
Eect on stress distribution of design variables for the base design
Geometry features Unzip stress Notch stress Section stress Crushing
stress
Blade Disk Blade Disk
Skew angle 1; rest
Shank neck width ) 1; rest 1, 4); rest
Blade shoulder width ) 2,3; rest ) 1; rest )
Bottom tooth crest radius 2; rest) ) 4; rest
Cooling passage width 1,2; rest ) 1); 2, 3 1, 2; 3, 4)
Bucket groove lower radius
Bucket groove upper radius
Tooth pitch )
Blade crest radius 1); rest )
Blade trough radius ) ) 1, 2); 3, 4
Disk crest radius 1); rest ) ) )
Disk trough radius ) ) 4); rest
indicates increase, ) indicates decrease, means no signicant eect when variable increases, number indicates the tooth number in
top-down order.
Fig. 5. Optimisation program structure.
1862 W. Song et al. / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 18531867
locating the exact position of individual optimum
given suitable starting points. Here the GA is used to
give good starting points for the gradient search meth-
ods.
An initial analysis on the base design revealed that
several geometric and mechanic constraints were vio-
lated. These include geometric constraints 4, 9, 10 and
11, and the disk notch stress constraints. Table 4
shows the resulting normalized constraint values for
the base design. Note that this means that the GA must
rst locate feasible designs before it can begin optimi-
zation.
5.3. Optimisation results
5.3.1. Results for minimising the r-tree frontal area
GAs often require large number of evaluations of the
objective function and constraints. The computational
cost involved can soon become prohibitively high when
computationally intensive nite element analysis is used
to calculate the stresses in the structure. In this problem
each evaluation takes about 56 min to nish, and not
surprisingly, most of this time is engaged in nite ele-
ment analysis. This means that it takes about 80 h to
nish a 10 generation GA search with a population size
of 100 using serial processing. (Note that for some spe-
cic sets of parameters, there is no viable geometry that
can be constructed, and when this occurs SC03 is simply
signalled to cancel the analysis.)
Because of the large number of design variables, the
optimisation trace may only be simply plotted on con-
tour maps of any two variables if these maps are as these
maps are necessarily produced while holding all the
other variables constant. Furthermore, if only a small
number of quantities are chosen as design variables,
there may be no feasible designs at all. For an infeasible
starting design, it is easier for the optimiser to nd a
feasible region if a large number of quantities are left as
design variables and broad exploratory searches meth-
ods are used.
A contour map for two design variables has been
generated using results from the GA search (Fig. 6).
Infeasible geometries and possible analysis failures are
also illustrated in the gure. It is noted that identica-
tion of this type of failure is useful for identifying any
problems with the implementation of the system
(sometimes calculations fail simply because of delays
due to overloading of the network), but this is not a
concern for optimisation as long as appropriate mea-
sures are employed to avoid misleading the optimiser.
This is important especially when approximations such
as response surfaces are introduced to improve run
speeds. A gradient based search is illustrated in Fig. 7a.
It can be seen that better starting points do not always
converge to better results, depending on the location
in the design space. This justies the use of the whole
nal population of the GA results instead of just the
best one as starting points for gradient search. A com-
parison between this simple two-stage strategy and a
direct gradient-based search is provided in Fig. 7b,
which shows that this two-stage strategy, although
simple, works better than a direct gradient search as
the initial GA search oers a better chance of steer-
ing the optimiser towards global optima, while a direct
Fig. 6. Contour map of r-tree frontal area for root wedge angle and tooth-pitch based on GA results. : Geometry or analysis
failure infeasible points; : minimum as shown.
W. Song et al. / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 18531867 1863
gradient-based search will more likely get stuck in a to
local optimum.
Several steepest descent search methods have been
applied to the problem after the initial GA search: these
include the Hooke and Jeeves direct search method plus
various other methods discussed in Schwefels book [15].
The rst method is very fast when the number of design
variables is small, as shown in Fig. 8, in which only 6
variables are chosen as design variables, while (the full
scale problem contains 14 design variables). Although
the complexity of this problem is only modest, the
computational cost in terms of the thousands of evalu-
ations required for some search techniques is still an
obstacle for a detailed search. It can be seen from the
contour maps that the objective function is rather
smooth, and this may justify the use of approximation
techniques alongside the accurate nite element model.
This will be the focus of further research.
A 20% reduction in the objective function was
achieved using the above methods while satisfying all the
Fig. 7. (a) Schwefel library method: repeated lagrangian interpolation (LAGR) on GA results and (b) comparison of search results
using dierent search strategies.
1864 W. Song et al. / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 18531867
geometric and mechanic constraints. By looking at the
trace data of the search process, it can be seen that
the three geometric constraints and the disk notch
stresses (identied earlier) remain the major factors af-
fecting the optimisation results. Note that the primary
changes to geometry occurred during the GA search and
are as illustrated in Fig. 9. These are a decrease in tooth
pitch, an increase in shank neck width and a decrease in
three of the four llet radii. In addition, the root wedge
angle is slightly increased.
5.3.2. Results for minimising the maximum notch stress
local shape tuning
Although minimising the frontal area, and thus the
rim-load will reduce overall weight, the life of blade/disc
is highly dependent on the notch stresses, and therefore
the notch stress may be ultimately minimised for the to
achieve required life targets. Therefore, following the
search on the full scale problem, a second optimisation
problem to minimise the maximum notch stress has been
carried out, starting from the best design found in the by
previous search. It is expected that this search will drive
the geometry in a dierent direction given the changed
goal. The result is shown in Fig. 10. In this case only the
six tooth prole parameters were chosen as design
variables. It can be seen that although a 25% reduction
in the maximum notch stress can be achieved, the r-tree
area is now increased by approximately 11%. Also note
that the root wedge angle has dropped signicantly
while the pitch and all the radii have risen. Clearly, the
choice of objective function has signicant impact on the
nal design.
6. Concluding remarks
The generative modelling facility provided by the
ICAD system enables the rapid evaluation of dierent
design alternatives in an engineering environment. In-
corporating such capabilities into a FEA-based struc-
tural optimisation process has been shown to be an
eective way to reduce design time scales and at the
Fig. 8. Contour map of r-tree frontal area and Hooke and Jeeves search terrace.
Fig. 9. Comparison of geometry between the base design and
the best of the GA search results.
W. Song et al. / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 18531867 1865
same time improve the quality of the end product. Other
information such as a cost evaluation model or a man-
ufacturing requirements model could be further included
without sacricing the compatibility of the existing
model. A complete and consistent product model could
then be achieved to be set-up for evaluation in the design
optimisation process.
The system implemented has been used to carry out
r-tree root optimisation using a two-stage hybrid
strategy combining gradient-based methods and GAs. It
is now clear that without a large number of evaluations,
it is not easy to explore the eects of dierent geometric
parameters and nd the best possible solutions using
direct searches. Such large numbers of nite element
analyses are computationally expensive even for a model
of modest complexity. Further research on the con-
struction of approximation models and strategies on
how to use them will be required to achieve further ef-
ciency gains as well as and most benet from the in-
tegration and automation oered by the use of ICAD
modelling.
Acknowledgements
This work was funded by the EPSRC under grant
reference GR/M53158 and the University Technology
Partnership for Design, which is a collaboration between
Rolls-Royce, BAE SYSTEMS and the Universities of
Cambridge, Sheeld and Southampton.
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