An Accelerated Medial Object Transformation for Whole Engine Optimisation

The following paper proposes an accelerated medial object transformation for the tip clearance optimisation of whole engine assemblies. A considerable reduction in medial object generation time has been achieved through two different mechanisms. Faces leading to unnecessary branches in the medial mesh are removed from the model and parallelisation of the medial object generation is improved through the subdivision of the original 3D CAD model. The time savings offered by these schemes are presented with respect to the generation of the medial objects of two complex gas turbine engine components. It is also demonstrated that the utilization of these techniques within a design optimisation may result in a considerable reduction in wall time.