Design optimization of laminar flow machine rotors based on the topological derivative concept

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Flow machines are very important to industry, being widely used on various processes. Thus, performance improvements are relevant and can be achieved by using topology optimization methods. In particular, this work aims to develop a topological derivative formulation to design radial flow machine rotors by considering laminar flow. Based on the concept of traditional topology optimization approaches, in the adopted topological derivative formulation, solid or fluid material is distributed at each point of the domain. This is achieved by combining Navier–Stokes equations on a rotary referential with Darcy’s law equations. This strategy allows for working in a fixed computational domain, which leads to a topology design algorithm of remarkably simple computational implementation. In the optimization problem formulation, a multi-objective function is defined, aiming to minimize the energy dissipation, vorticity and power considering a volume constraint. The constrained optimization problem is rewritten in the form of an unconstrained optimization problem by using the Augmented Lagrangian formalism. The resulting multi-objective shape functional is then minimized with help of the topological derivative concept. In the context of this article, the topological derivative represents the exact sensitivity with respect to the nucleation of an inclusion within the design domain and the obtained analytical (closed) formula can be evaluated through a simple post processing of the solutions to the direct and adjoints problems. Both mentioned features allow for obtaining the optimized designs in few iterations by using a minimal number of user defined algorithm parameters. All equations and the derived continuous adjoint equations are solved through finite element method. As a result, two-dimensional designs of flow machine rotors are obtained by using this methodology. Their performance is analyzed by evaluating velocity and pressure distributions inside rotor.