Integrated Turbine Design Using Evolutionary Strategies to Minimize Fuel Burn

This paper describes the use of an Evolutionary Strategies optimization scheme to optimize the rotor blade section of a high-pressure turbine stage for minimum fuel burn. The goal is to determine if the blade optimization can result in an overall engine performance upgrade by minimizing the fuel required. To ascertain the overall effect of turbine improvement on fuel burn specifically, the remainder of the engine is modeled using the Numerical Propulsion System Simulation tool. The result is a 0.082% improvement in fuel burn. The paper details the resulting configuration and identifies some strategies which are emerging for improving turbine design.