Improved turbine-blade design techniques using 4th-order parametric- spline segments (Q1802268)

Turbine blades are usually designed by a succession of two-dimensional cross-sections that can be handled by techniques of two-dimensional approximation. The Navier-Stokes equations show that the flow of air around the blades depends on the derivatives of the curvature of the cross-sections. Therefore, the usual tools such as cubic splines are not satisfactory. The authors develop the formalism for the treatment of curve approximation by parametric splines of degree 4. In contrast to cubic splines, the final linear equation to be solved involves a pentadiagonal matrix that is far from being diagonally dominant. (The properties of this kind of splines merit some detailed mathematical investigation.) The rest of the paper is devoted to CAD considerations specific to turbine design.