Adjoint method-based inverse design of transonic compressor cascade with boundary layer control

Abstract

Gradient-based methods for inverse design and optimisation are powerful tools for CFD-based aerodynamic design. For problems characterised by large number of design variables, the computational effort of gradient-based optimisation can be however prohibitively high. In this work, a numerical approach for which the number of design variables has insignificant effect on computational effort is used. Adjoint approach is a suitable methodology for handling inverse design or optimisation of complex geometries with single objective functional. In this work, inverse design of 2D transonic compressor cascade with target pressure distribution chosen for later use of active boundary layer control is presented. High aerodynamic loading inviscid design is performed and then adapted for viscous flow with steady tangential blowing boundary layer control and investigated with RANS analysis.