Convective cooling optimization of a blade for a supercritical steam turbine

Abstract This paper discusses the problem of blade cooling system optimization connected with conjugate heat transfer (CHT) analysis for reliable thermal field prediction within a steam cooled component. Since the full CHT solution, which involves the main flow, blade material and the coolant flow domains is computationally expensive from the point of view of optimization process, it was decided to reduce the problem by fixing the boundary conditions at the blade surface and solving the task for the interior only (both solid material and coolant). Such assumption, on one hand, makes the problem computationally feasible, and on the other, provides more reliable thermal field prediction than it used to be with the empirical relationships. The analysis involves shape optimization of internal cooling passages within an airfoil. The cooling passages are modeled with a set of four Bezier splines joined together to compose a closed contour. Each passage is fed with cooling steam of constant parameters at the inlet. In the present study the airfoil profile is taken as aerodynamically optimal. The search problem is solved with evolutionary algorithm and the final configuration is to be found among the Pareto optimal cooling candidates.