TURBOdesign1 - Inverse Design versus Conventional Design

There are two methods for aerodynamic design. In the direct method, commonly used in turbomachinery design, the blade geometry from earlier designs is specified and then modified iteratively by trial and error using a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code to evaluate each design and in order to check whether the required flow field in terms of pressure distribution, torque and pressure ratio is obtained (see Fig. 1). This approach to a large extent relies on empiricism. In the inverse design method, the blade geometry is computed for a specified distribution of blade pressure distribution, which controls the overall behaviour of the flow on the blade.