Knowledge-based system for preliminary aerodynamic design of aircraft engine turbines

The turbine design optimization system described here automates the turbine preliminary design process and stimulates designer interactions through the use of knowledge engineering. The turbine design optimization problem is an np-complete problem and needs to be solved iteratively. Automation of the design process permits search over a much larger domain than is possible for the human designer. In addition it allows designers to look beyond the horizons of the present, limited design subtask so that they can work on new ideas and concepts, testing hypotheses by using the system to answer what-if questions. The optimization system allows the user to make tradeoffs between multiple design objectives.