A compatible mixed design and analysis finite element method for the design of turbomachinery blades

In this paper the development of a compatible mixed design and analysis method is presented for the quasi‐three‐dimensional finite element blade‐to‐blade program FINSUP. The method consists of two parts. The first is concerned with a method of modelling changes to a blade shape using a surface transpiration model. The second is concerned with determining the relationship between the displaced blade surface and the surface velocity distribution. It is shown that with the Newton‐Raphson procedure adopted in the method a very efficient manner of introducing the design option is possible. As a consequence the resulting program is fast and completely interactive. A number of examples are given to illustrate how the mixed design and analysis mode can be used in practical blade design.