A compatible mixed design and analysis finite element method for the design of turbomachinery blades

In this paper the development of a compatible mixed design and analysis method is presented for the quasi-three-dimensional finite element blade-to-blade program FINSUP. The method consists of two parts. The first is concerned with a method of modeling changes to a blade shape using a surface transpiration model. The second is concerned with determining the relationship between the displaced blade surface and the surface velocity distribution. It is shown that with the Newton-Raphson procedure adopted in the method a very efficient manner of introducing the design option is possible. As a consequence the resulting program is fast and completely interactive. A number of examples are given to illustrate how the mixed design and analysis mode can be used in practical blade design.