Date of Award

5-2008

Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

Degree Name

Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering

Department

Aerospace Engineering

Committee Chair

Dr. Vladimire Golubev

Committee Member

Uyi Idahosa

Committee Member

Dr. Eric Perrell

Abstract

The main focus of designing turbomachinery is to analyze and optimize the aerodynamic efficiency and structural integrity of the machine. The preferred way to perform aerodynamic and structural analysis is to connect the analyses and shorten the analysis time as much as possible. ANSYS, Inc. provides a comprehensive approach to model fluid structure interaction phenomenon in turbomachinery within the ANSYS Workbench environment. This environment combines a number of software components that conduct blade design, fluid dynamic and structural analyses, and pre- and post-processing including mesh generation and overall performance estimation.

The focus of this study is to apply the ANSYS Workbench environment to two turbomachinery applications: a low speed fan design and a propeller design for high altitude flight. The entire process is successfully implemented for the low speed fan analysis and provides verification that the ANSYS Workbench environment works properly, with CFD predictions obtained within 1% of the previous research. On the other hand, the environment fails for the high altitude propeller blade analysis because the blade creation program in ANSYS Workbench does not support creating highly twisted propeller blades, and some essential design information is missing from the blade design source. Overall, it appears that the ANSYS Workbench environment is a highly useful tool for connecting CFD and structural analysis in the turbomachinery design process.

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