Noniterative Component Design Approach Aiming at Engine-Level Objectives

Aeroengines are strongly coupled systems that require collaborative design at the engine and component levels. However, component designers cannot easily clarify design strategies and predict their effect on the overall performance of the engine because of the inefficiency of information-exchange approaches between the engine and component levels. This limitation results in time-intensive cross-level redesign iterations. To address this issue, a noniterative approach is proposed for transforming engine-level objectives into component design guidance. The proposed approach innovatively treats the engine system as a unique component by substituting the component of interest with equivalent aerodynamic parameters at its aerodynamic interface with the engine. This visualizes engine-level design objectives and constraints as contour maps, analogous to component performance maps, which delineate the feasible design regions for the components. This framework enables designers to effectively understand the effect of component design on engine performance without requiring cross-level iterations. Further, a modeling technique for an aeroengine with an incomplete configuration is developed to support design objective decomposition. The proposed approach is demonstrated and validated through an optimization case study involving the design of a labyrinth seal within a secondary air system. The sealing robustness is identified as a novel design criterion using the proposed design approach, and a novel configuration of the labyrinth seal with curved and reversed teeth is proposed for improving the sealing robustness. This study provides an effective approach in supporting bilevel decision making in complex systems characterized by strong interactions.