Design and Optimization Method for Inertial Particle Separator Systems

Abstract

The paper presents a method for the design and optimization of a multi-element airfoil-based inertial particle separator. To facilitate design in an interactive manner, a MATLAB graphical user interface was developed with the following capabilities: 1) design of individual airfoil elements; 2) orientation and arrangement of the airfoils to form a multi-element airfoil-based inertial particle separator system by employing translational, scaling, and rotational functions; 3) analysis of the inertial particle separator system; and 4) optimum design of the inertial particle separator system using an evolutionary algorithm-based direct-search optimization technique. The design of individual airfoils was achieved through the use of the PROFOIL code, a state-of-the-art multipoint inverse airfoil design program. Multiple airfoils were arranged to form a multi-element airfoil-based inertial particle separator system subject to geometric constraints. A two-dimensional analysis tool for the multi-element airfoil was linked to the synthesis component of the graphical user interface to carry out flow and particle trajectory analysis component of the program. For the optimization component of the program, a computational objective function was implemented and coupled with a pattern search optimizer of the Direct Search Toolbox in MATLAB. Design and optimization was achieved using multivariable optimization. The paper presents two design examples to demonstrate the design method.