Hub Endwall Research Articles

Insights Into Turbocharger Centrifugal Compressor Stability Using High-Fidelity CFD and a Novel Impeller Diffusion Factor

Abstract Turbocharger technologies are widely applied in the modern automotive industry to meet increasingly stringent carbon emission standards. To support the continuous enhancement of these tactics, delivering improvement to the performance and stability of turbocharger compressors at low mass flow rate regimes is of paramount importance. The present paper investigated the stability of a turbocharger compressor stage equipped with a ported shroud, using high-fidelity CFD simulations. It was found that the recirculated flow passing through the ported shroud device had primary influence on the flow condition in the vicinity of the impeller tip region (80% to 100% span). This discovery facilitated the definition of a modified impeller diffusion factor (DF), which was applied to the CFD results for three different compressor geometry configurations to lead to the provision of quantitative metrics for impeller stability. Furthermore, the observed change in the limiting impeller DF along the compressor surge line indicated that the dominant components governing the instability of the entire stage had switched, i.e., the stalling behavior of the compressor stage had transitioned from impeller dominated stall to vaneless diffuser dominated stall. Additionally, the limiting impeller DF clearly showed that one of the compressor configurations with a change in the hub endwall recess around the rear of the impeller improved the impeller stability by 3%. By comparison, another configuration with a change to strut geometry in the ported shroud recirculation channel reduced the impeller stability by 10%.

Numerical Investigations of Flows and Heat Transfer in Turbine Disk Cavities

Abstract In gas turbines, the stator wells play a key role in the efficiency of the turbomachine. The research for performance gains requires a good understanding and an accurate modeling of the flows and heat transfers occurring in these areas. Within the framework of the European program main annulus gas path interaction (MAGPI) WP1, a two-stage axial turbine test rig provided an experimental database used to validate the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models. The aim of this study is to setup a numerical methodology using the CFD solver ANSYSFluent to accurately predict the conjugate heat transfer in the stator well area. The validation of the methodology relies on thorough comparison of the results with the MAGPI WP1 experimental temperature/pressure measurements. A geometry with axial cooling injection through lock plate slot was chosen. A Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) three-dimensional sectorized CFD model of the turbine with conjugate heat transfer was used. It includes main gas path, cavities with labyrinths, disks rotor, the casing, and the nozzle guide vanes (NGV). Mixing planes are placed between the static and rotating frames. Different influences (mesh, turbulence model, thermal boundary conditions, radial labyrinths clearances) were studied and compared with experimental data. As a baseline, the first calculations were performed with a cooling flowrate chosen so that hot gas ingresses from the main stream into the stator well cavity. Good agreements between predicted and measured temperatures/pressures were observed, especially in the vicinity of the stator well. Discrepancies were spotted at the first rotor hub endwall and at the upstream wheelspace and will be discussed. Two other cooling configurations were conducted, one with cooling air exiting from the disk rim cavity to the main gas path and the other with the lowest cooling flowrate and so the highest ingress. Finally, the turbine performance under nonadiabatic conditions has been evaluated with an appropriate efficiency definition.

Inception of Casing Wall Flow Instabilities and Downstream Flow Evolution in Subsonic Axial Compressor Rotors At High Rotor Stagger Angles

Two critical aspects of the casing wall flow structure in a subsonic axial flow compressor are studied in this paper: flow mechanism leading to stalling at different stagger angle configurations; and the effect of tip leakage flows on these flow phenomena. In some of the previous works, casing wall flow instabilities similar to the ones discussed in the present paper were reported, typically for high stagger angle rotor designs. However under what conditions flow tends to take such shapes were not discussed in detail. This work attempts to address this through a detailed numerical study on unswept and forward swept rotors, for different stagger angle settings, and for varied levels of rotor tip gaps. Three candidate rotors (unswept, 20° true swept, 20° axially swept) are studied with three tip clearances (0.0%, 0.7%, and 2.7% of the blade chord) for three stagger angle changes (0°, +3° and +5°). Stagger angle is found to have significant effect on suction surface flow separations. Tip clearance is observed to be critical on the inception of casing wall flow instabilities, especially at higher stagger angles. Hub endwall flow structure and the downstream flow evolution are also discussed in the paper.

On the Effect of Side Clearance in the Vaned Diffuser of a Centrifugal Compressor

AbstractEnvironmental and regulatory pressures have prompted original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to explore highly boosted internal combustion (IC) engines as a means to minimize toxic air pollutants and meet strict legislative targets. The exhaust gas turbocharger is a key technology used to achieve the boost pressures necessary for advanced engines of the future. Centrifugal compressors with vaneless diffusers have been widely implemented in turbochargers for IC engines, particularly passenger vehicles, primarily due to their compact size and ability to deliver high-pressure ratios over a wide range of flowrates. Methods to improve compressor efficiency near surge without reducing the surge margin have received considerable interest in the past. In many situations, changes to the impeller blade design and/or diffuser are limited by the need to meet the strict engine-rated power target. Such competing demands have encouraged designers to develop variable geometry compressors with the aim of improving near surge performance without sacrificing rated power performance. The on/off-type vaned diffuser is a variable geometry compressor capable of delivering a pressure ratio benefit near surge by utilizing a vaned diffuser rather than a vaneless diffuser. The vanes are retracted prior to the diffuser choking to form a vaneless diffuser in order to reach the engine-rated power condition. Diffuser vane-shaped clearances in the hub or the shroud end wall, termed side clearances, enable axial sliding variability of the vanes into and out of the diffuser passage. Unfortunately, the clearances manifest themselves as a discontinuity in the flow field which gives rise to an efficiency penalty. It is not yet clear how the side clearance geometry and position affect the compressor performance i.e., efficiency and stability. Hence, a numerical and experimental investigation was carried out to determine the impact of side clearance geometry and end wall position on compressor performance. It was found that a side clearance positioned at the shroud end wall reduced the surge margin of the investigated compressor for both types of clearance geometry considered. In contrast to this, a clearance positioned at the hub end wall improved the compressor surge margin but had the lowest efficiency benefit near surge. An experimentally validated Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model was used to inspect the flow field and to elucidate the reasons behind the changes in compressor performance.

Experimental study on the aerodynamic performance of variable geometry low-pressure turbine adjustable guide vanes

An annular cascade testing rig of a variable-geometry low-pressure turbine with a large expansion angle was designed and built, combining a five-hole probe, a surface static pressure test system, and a PIV(Particle Image Velocimetry) measurement system. The effects of exit Mach numbers (0.2, 0.3, 0.4), turning angles (−1.5°, 0°, 3°), and adjustable device diameters (30 mm, 40 mm) on turbine cascade aerodynamic performance were experimentally investigated. Numerical simulations were also carried out to gain more insight into the flow fundamentals. Results show that the endwall clearance and the adjustable device significantly influence the flow field, with leakage flows before, after, and around the disc. The leakage vortex and passage vortex formation resulted in two high-loss regions in the shroud and hub endwall regions. The aerodynamic loss structures at the exit section were similar at different Mach numbers and varied considerably at different turning angles. Besides, a larger area of the adjustable device (d = 40 mm) was found to reduce the leakage loss caused by upper and lower clearance leakage flows and inhibit the development of secondary flows, resulting in a more straightforward secondary flow structure and a smaller influence range. Quantitatively, the adjustable device with a diameter of 40 mm could decrease the average total pressure loss coefficients by 11.5%, 16.6%, and 6.3% at three turning angles (−1.5°, 0°, 3°), respectively, compare to the adjustable device with a diameter of 30 mm.

Effects of Loading Level on the Variation of Flow Losses in Subsonic Axial Compressors

The development of the aircraft industry seeks an increase in compressor loading, bringing unique flow phenomena and design problems; thus, insights into the ultrahigh loaded compressor are in great need. To reveal the loss characteristics of the ultrahigh loaded subsonic axial compressors, four well comparable compressor stages are carefully designed with the loading coefficient varying from 0.41 to 0.65. A novel flow-based loss decomposition method is performed to investigate the variation of different kinds of losses (including blade profile loss, tip leakage loss, casing endwall loss, and hub endwall loss) with the change in compressor loading level and operating condition. Results show that the blade profile loss always occupies the largest part of the total loss. In rotor passages, the percentage of the blade profile loss at the design point is increased from 69% to 76% with the increase in the compressor loading. Meanwhile, the proportion of the tip leakage loss decreases as the loading increases. For a specific compressor stage, the total loss of the rotor passage tends to increase with the increase in stage pressure rise coefficient along the operation line, whereas the proportion of the blade profile loss is squeezed by the tip leakage loss. As for stator passages, the proportion of blade profile loss to the total passage loss is nearly constant along the compressor operating line, but increases from 79% to 90% with the increase in the compressor loading level. By correlating the losses with blade solidity, it was found that the increase in flow losses in the highly loaded compressor, i.e., the decrease in efficiency, stems mainly from the high blade solidity.

Investigation of flow unsteadiness in a highly-loaded compressor cascade using a dynamic mode decomposition method

Unsteady flow in the hub endwall region has long been a hot topic in the turbomachinery community. However important it is to the performance of the whole engine, the coherent unsteady flow phenomena are still not well understood. In this paper, the complex flow field in the hub endwall of a cantilevered compressor cascade has been investigated through numerical approach. The predicted results were validated by experimental data. To highlight the dominant flow structures among irregular and chaotic motions of various vortices, a Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD) method was utilized. The results show that there exist three dominant periodic flow structures: the oscillation of the leakage vortex, a circumferential migration of a Breakdown Induced Vortex (BIV) and the fluctuation of the passage vortex. These three coherent structures all together form a self-sustained closed loop which accounts for the flow unsteadiness of the studied cascade. During this process, the BIV plays a key role in inducing the flow unsteadiness. Only if the BIV is strong enough to affect the passage vortex, the flow unsteadiness occurs. This study expands current knowledge base of flow unsteadiness in a compressor environment, and shows the efficacy of the DMD method for revealing the origin of flow unsteadiness.

DEVELOPMENT OF A LIFETIME PRESSURE SENSITIVE PAINT PROCEDURE FOR HIGH-PRESSURE VANE TESTING

Abstract Optical measurements based on fast response Pressure Sensitive Paint (PSP) provide enhanced spatial resolution of the pressure field. This paper presents lifetime PSP at 20 kHz, with precise calibrations, and results from a demonstration in an annular vane cascade. The laser lifetime PSP methodology is first evaluated in a linear wind tunnel with a converging-diverging nozzle followed by a wavy surface. This test section is fully optically accessible with maximum modularity. A data reduction procedure is proposed for the PSP calibration, and optimal pixel binning is selected to reduce the uncertainty. In the annular test section, laser lifetime PSP was used to measure the time-averaged static pressure field on a section of the suction surface of a high-pressure turbine vane. Tests were performed at engine representative conditions in the Purdue Big Rig for Annular Stationary Turbine Analysis module at the Purdue Experimental Turbine Aerothermal Lab. The 2-D pressure results showed a gradual increase of pressure across the spanwise and flow directions, corroborated with local static pressure taps and computational results. The variation in PSP thickness was measured as a contribution to the uncertainty. The discrete Fourier transform of the unsteady pressure signal showed increased frequency content in wind-on compared to wind-off conditions at the mid-span and 30% span. Compared to the mid-span, the hub end wall region had an increase in frequencies and pressure amplitude. This result was anticipated given the expected presence of secondary flow structures at the near hub region.

The Combined Influences of Hot Streak and Swirl on the Cooling Performances of C3X Guide Vane with or without TBCs

This paper studied the combined influences of the hot streak and swirl on the cooling performances of the NASA C3X guide vane coated with or without thermal barrier coatings (TBCs). The results show that: (1) Even under uniform velocity inlet conditions, the hot streak core can be stretched as it impinges the leading edge which causes higher heat load on the suction side of the forward portion. (2) The swirl significantly affects circumferential and radial migration of the hot streak core in the NGV passage. On the passage inlet plane, positive swirl leads to a hotter tip region on the suction side. In comparison, negative swirl leads to a hotter hub region on the pressure side. (3) Under the influence of swirl, migration of coolant improves the coverage of film cooling close to the midspan, while in the regions close to the hub and tip end-wall, the overall cooling performance decreases simultaneously. (4) In the regions with enough internal cooling, the cooling effectiveness increment is always larger than that in other regions. Besides, the overall cooling effectiveness increment decreases on the region covered by film cooling for the coated vane, especially in the region with negative local heat flux.

Influence of Boundary Layer Skew on the Tip Leakage Vortex of an Axial Compressor Stator

Abstract For an axial compressor stator with tip gap, the boundary layer (BL) in the hub endwall region has a significant influence on the development and progression of the tip leakage vortex. Herein, the so-called BL skew, which develops through relative motion of the hub, is of particular interest. Therefore, experimental and numerical investigations of a single axial compressor stator row with varying tip gap height (tip gap height/chord length =2.0%|5.4%|6.7%) have been conducted. Comparing cases with rotating or stationary hub endwall segments upstream of the examined vanes allowed to determine the effect of the skewed and un-skewed inflow BL. The steady-state flow fields up- and downstream of the stator row were measured using five-hole pressure probes. For validation and to improve the understanding of the existing flow phenomena, 3D-Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) CFD simulations using a commercial flow solver were carried out. Furthermore, analog cases with no tip gap were examined and considered in the comparisons to extend the knowledge on this BL characteristic. The results show that the BL skew has a major influence on the trajectory and size of the tip leakage vortex for the cases with tip clearance. The effect of reduction of the produced losses decreases with increasing tip gap height.

Reducing rotor secondary losses in a turbine stage through endwall airfoil profiling

The rotor blade of an experiment turbine for low Reynolds number flow conditions is recontoured on the hub endwall to reduce the hub’s secondary flow losses. The baseline rotor blade is radially stacked with airfoils of free vortex twisting. The hub section airfoil of the rotor blade is reprofiled for three considerations. The first is to reduce the inlet metal angle to fit with the vane’s exit flow angle near the hub endwall. The second is to reduce the airfoil’s stagger angle to reduce the pitchwise pressure gradient on the hub endwall. The third is to extend the airfoil’s axial chord to a limited distance before the baseline one to build a leading edge fillet. A steady RANS flow computation is carried out to compare the flow fields inside the baseline and the new contoured rotor passages. Flow comparison reveals that the passage vortex intensity is reduced and that the total pressure loss is reduced by 8.9 % in the hub region. The new contoured rotor shows potential application in reducing rotor secondary losses through the stacking of two-dimensional sectional airfoils.

Unsteady Effects of Upstream Nozzle Wakes on Hub-Endwall Flow and Heat Transfer of an HPT Rotor

Nozzle wakes have significant effects on the heat transfer on the rotor blade and endwall surfaces. Numerical studies have been carried out in a subsonic high pressure turbine stage to investigate the rotor’s secondary flow field and endwall heat transfer. Both steady and unsteady RANS analyses were accomplished for the multiple blade rows using mixing-plane and domain-scaling techniques respectively. Special attention was focused on the particular nozzle wake structure of secondary passage vortex near the hub endwall and its effects on the endwall heat transfer characteristics. Unsteady solution indicates that the passage vortex near the rotor hub is transported toward the midspan due to the blade interaction and rotation effects. In the front passage region, the time-averaged result yields higher heat transfer up to 20% than a steady one, and the transient fluctuation amplitude reaches 40% of mean values along the passage vortex moving path. In the rear passage region, the difference between steady and unsteady solutions is negligible. Current study reveals that the major difference of wake effects between an actual turbine and a linear cascade with moving bars comes from the movement of the vortical endwall passage vortex in the incoming flow.

Secondary Flow and Endwall Optimization of a Transonic Turbine

A detailed numerical analysis of secondary flows in a transonic turbine is presented in this paper. The turbine stage is optimized by mitigating secondary flow through the method of non-axisymmetric endwall design. An automated optimization platform of NUMECA/Design3D was coupled with Euranus as a flow solver for the numerical investigation. The contoured endwalls of the stator and the rotor hub were designed based on equidistant Bézier curves along the camber line in the blade channel. The initial design samples were ten times the number of the design variables, and were generated through the LHS method for database generation. The optimization of the endwalls was achieved by using a state-of-the-art multi-objective optimization algorithm, NSGA-II, connected with the BPNN to increase the isentropic efficiency and decrease the secondary kinetic energy, while the mass flow and the degree of reaction were constrained to remain on the datum value as in the original geometry. The individual optimization of the hub endwalls of the stator and the rotor produced an increase in the efficiency of 0.27% and 0.25%, respectively, resulting in a cumulative improvement of 0.46% in the efficiency. The increase in the performance was analyzed at part-load conditions, and it was further confirmed through unsteady simulations.

Aerodynamic Design Optimization of an Axial Flow Compressor Stator Using Parameterized Free-Form Deformation

AbstractThis paper describes an aerodynamic design optimization of a highly loaded compressor stator blade using parameterized free-form deformation (FFD). The optimization methodology presented utilizes a B-spline-based FFD control volume to map the blade from the object space to the parametric space via transformation operations in order to perturb the blade surface. Coupled with a multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA) and a Gaussian process-based response surface method (RSM), a fully automated iterative loop was used to run the optimization on a fitted correlation function. A weighted average reduction of 6.1% and 36.9% in total pressure loss and exit whirl angle was achieved, showing a better compromise of objective functions with smoother blade shape than other results obtained in the open literature. Data mining of the Pareto set of optimums revealed four groups of data interactions of which some design variables were found to have skewed scatter relationship with objective functions and can be redefined for further improvement of performance. Analysis of the flow field showed that the thinning of the blade at midspan and reduction in camber distribution were responsible for the elimination of the focal-type separation vortex by redirecting the secondary flow in an axially forward direction toward the midspan and near the hub endwall downstream. Furthermore, the reduction in exit whirl angle especially at the shroud was due to the mild bow shape which generated radial forces on the flow field thereby reducing the flow diffusion rate at the suction surface corner. This effect substantially delayed or eliminated the formation of corner separation at design and off-design operating conditions. Parameterized FFD was found to have superior benefits of smooth surface generation with low number of design variables while maintaining a good compromise between objective functions when coupled with a genetic algorithm.

Effects of Stator Platform Geometry Features on Blade Row Performance

This paper details an experimental investigation, using a linear cascade, into the effects of real geometry features on the aerodynamic performance of stator blade rows within axial flow compressors. The specific geometric features investigated include shroud cavities, inter-platform gaps, vane-pack gaps and the effects of misalignment of the platform endwalls due to manufacturing tolerances. A computational investigation into these effects is also included. To ensure that the linear cascade measurements are representative of a multi-stage compressor environment a novel experimental technique was developed to generate a hub endwall boundary layer which had skew. The boundary layer skew generation method involves injecting flow along the cascade endwall in such a manner as to control both the displacement thickness and tangential momentum thickness of the resulting boundary layer. Without the presence of the endwall boundary layer skew the linear cascade could not reproduce the flow features typically observed in a multi-stage compressor. The investigation reveals that real geometry features can have a significant impact on the flowfield within a blade passage. For a shrouded stator, increasing the leakage flow rate increases the stagnation pressure loss coefficient. However, high levels of whirl pickup of the leakage flow as it passes through the stator-shroud cavity can offset the natural secondary flow within the stator passage and thus reduce the stagnation pressure loss. All of the steps and gaps that were observed to be present in real compressors were found to increase the stagnation pressure loss relative to that of a smooth endwall. It is also shown that the computational method is capable of capturing the trends observed in the experiments.

Purge flow effects on rotor hub endwall heat transfer with extended endwall contouring into the disk cavity

Efficiency improvements for gas turbines are strongly coupled with increasing turbine inlet temperatures. This imposes new challenges for designers for efficient and adequate cooling of turbine components. Modern gas turbines inject bleed air from the compressor into the stator/rotor rim seal cavity to prevent hot gas ingestion from the main flow, while cooling the rotor disk. The purge flow interacts with the main flow field and static pressure field imposed by the turbine blades. This complex interaction causes non-uniform and jet-like penetration of the purge flow into the main flow field, hence affecting the endwall heat transfer on the rotor. To improve the understanding of purge flow effects on rotor hub endwall heat transfer, an unshrouded, high-pressure representative turbine design with 3D blading and extended endwall contouring of the rotor into the cavity seal was tested. The measurements were conducted in the 1.5-stage axial turbine facility LISA at ETH Zurich, where a state-of-the-art measurement setup with a high-speed infrared camera and thermally managed rotor insert was used to perform high-resolution heat transfer measurements on the rotor. Three different purge flow rates were investigated with regard to hub endwall heat transfer. Additionally, steady-state computational fluid dynamics simulations were performed to complement the experiments. It was found that the local heat transfer rate changes up to ±20% depending on the purge flow rate. The main part of the purged air is ejected at the endwall trough location and swept towards the rotor suction side, which is caused by the interaction of main flow and the cavity extended endwall design. The presence of low momentum purge flow locally reduces the heat transfer rate. Changes in adiabatic wall temperature and heat transfer (depending on purge rate) are observed from the platform start up to the cross passage migration of the secondary flow structures.

Optimization strategy for a single-stage axisymmetric hub endwall in axial compressor by a modified transonic area rule

The secondary loss is the primary factor limiting the performance of highly loaded compressors. As inspired by the transonic area rule used in optimization of airplane fuselage, considering the similarities of the blockage effect induced by wing to fuselage and the blockage induced by blade to flow channel, the idea of using the transonic area rule method in compressor hub profile modification has been proposed and discussed. Some related analyses are investigated due to the failure of a direct application of the transonic area rule, which includes flow field analyses, the study of related parameters and a sensitivity evaluation of eleven control parameters on the adiabatic efficiency of the compressor. Then, two parameters (rotor maximum concave displacement ratio ΔZ‾R and magnification ratio of rotor hub leading edge l¯1R) which have great influence on the compressor efficiency are chosen to modify the transonic area rule and to establish a new optimization guideline in the optimization of compressor hub profile. After all, the developed optimization method is applied to the first stage of a four-stage embedded compressor with an achievement of 0.97% peak efficiency rise without any penalty of total pressure ratio. Based on the numerical results, the main reasons for the peak efficiency rise are also presented and discussed.

Heat transfer analyses of film-cooled HP turbine vane considering effects of swirl and hot streak

Conjugate heat transfer (CHT) analyses were conducted on the film-cooled first stage vane of GE-E3 engine to reveal the influences of inlet swirl and hot streak (HS) on vane film cooling. Two cases with only HS and four cases considering with combined HS and swirl were studied, including the effects of HS/swirl to vane clocking positions (HS/swirl aligned to passage or vane) and swirl orientations (positive/negative). The results indicate that the variations of incidence angle combined with effects of radial transportation of the swirl vortex worsen the film coolant attachment, decrease the film cooling efficiency and increase the heat load onto vane surface. However, for film holes with radial angles toward the outer endwall, negative incidence near hub endwall is beneficial to the leading edge film coolant attachment. Therefore, a negative swirl aligned to the vane leads to lowering the temperature at the leading edge and the pressure side than the other three cases with combined swirl and HS. Heat transfer coefficient (HTC) on the suction surface (SS) is increased due to upwash and downwash of boundary layer fluids caused by swirl. The temperature on SS is therefore increased because the heat energy transferred from fluid to solid is increased.

Flow development through HP & LP turbines, Part II: Effects of the hub endwall secondary sealing air flow on the turbine’s mainstream flow

Although many literatures have been focused on the underneath flow and loss mechanism, very few experiments and simulations have been done under the engines’ representative working conditions or considering the real cavity structure as a whole. This paper aims at realizing the goal of design of efficient turbine and scrutinizing the velocity distribution in the vicinity of the rim seal. With the aid of numerical method, a numerical model describing the flow pattern both in the purge flow spot and within the mainstream flow path is established, fluid migration and its accompanied flow mechanism within the realistic cavity structure (with rim seal structure and considering mainstream & secondary air flow’s interaction) is used to evaluate both the flow pattern and the underneath flow mechanism within the inward rotating cavity. Meanwhile, the underneath flow and loss mechanism are also studied in the current paper. The computational results show that the sealing air flow’s ingestion and ejection are highly interwound with each other in both upstream and downstream flow of the rim seal. Both the down-stream blades’ potential effects as well as the upstream blades’ wake trajectory can bring about the ingestion of the hot gas flow within the cavity, abrupt increase of the static pressure is believed to be the main reason. Also, the results indicate that sealing air flow ejected through the rear cavity will cause unexpected loss near the outlet section of the blades in the downstream of the HP rotor passages.

Automatic Design Optimization of Profiled Endwalls Including Real Geometrical Effects to Minimize Turbine Secondary Flows

This paper presents a novel optimization methodology based on both adjoint sensitivity analysis and trust-based dynamic response surface modeling to improve the performance of a modern turbine of a large civil aero-engine in the presence of high-fidelity geometry configurations. The system has been applied to the nonaxisymmetric hub and tip endwall optimization of a high-pressure turbine stage making use of multirow 3D simulations, parametric modeling, and rapid meshing of real geometry features such as rim seals and modeling of film cooling flows. It has been shown in previous papers that improvements gained using simplified models of the stage are lost when applying the high-fidelity geometry configuration. New results presented in this paper indicate that controlling the purge flow that exits the disk space through the rim seal at the hub of the main annulus is more significant than the reduction of secondary flows in the main passage. For a given rim sealing mass flow rate and whirl velocity, the nonaxisymmetric endwalls are optimized such that the detrimental impact of the sealing flow on the turbine performance is reduced, and hence, the stage efficiency is significantly increased. The traditional optimization approaches based on evolutionary methods or even sequential modifications for defining the endwalls shape are computationally demanding. Since turbomachinery industry continuously strive to reduce the design cycle time, in particular when high-fidelity 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is used, the main body of this paper outlines the novel methods developed to produce a practical design in a very aggressively short design cycle time.