Topological Aerodynamic Design Optimisation

Research Theme: Computational Design

Topology is among the principal characteristics of any aerodynamic components, closely related to the basic design concept and is chosen early in the design process. This choice has a great effect throughout the product lifetime, yet is seldom based from first principles.

This project attempts to improve the aerodynamic design process by introducing a framework for topological design exploration of aerodynamic components, based on advanced flow simulation technology.

Motivation

The development of BoXeR, an integrated geometry-editing and flow-solving package, provides designers with an unprecedented capability to explore radical aerodynamic design. We are interested in the potential of an automated framework that could search previously unexplored design space and suggest interesting and possibly radical topologies, promoting an awareness of the topology selection trade-off based on the physics of the problem, therefore enhancing the creativity and decision-making of aerodynamic designers.

Objectives

  • To construct an aerodynamic topology optimisation framework utilising suitablerepresentations and optimisation schemes
  • To demonstrate the frameworks ability to suggest an array of alternativetopologies for a given design problem
  • To demonstrate that it can help designers choose the optimal topology fromfirst principles

Method

Key steps are to determine an appropriate object representation, to find an optimisation scheme to drive the process, and then to design optimisation "move" operators appropriate for aerodynamic problems. Some test cases will then be performed to ascertain the effectiveness of the framework.

Findings

Having determined the most suitable components for the proposed framework, our concept demonstrator that incorporates most of the basic principles of the proposed framework has demonstrated that our approach can provide a variety of solution topologies for designers for simple test cases. We are now implementing the full version of the framework.

Acknowledgements

Support for this project was provided by Rolls Royce plc, the EPSRC, and Cambridge Flow Solutions.

Selected Publications

  • HUTABARAT, W. , PARKS, G.T., JARRETT, J.P. and CLARKSON,P.J. (2006) 'A new approach to aerodynamic topology optimisation' in the Proceedingsof the Seventh International Conference in Adaptive Computing in Design andManufacture 2006, Bristol, U.K, pp 37-46.