GE Aviation

Turbo machinery preliminary design is an iterative process that begins with an initial Cycle design and culminates with a cross-section of an engine that meets performance, weight and cost criteria. There is a need to have an integrated system that can allow designers to work seamlessly with the conceptual design process involving Cycle, aero and mechanical preliminary design methods. This becomes a huge challenge considering the minimal inputs available at the initial design stage, complexities of design requirements and the multi-disciplinary skills required to come up with accurate design concepts that can satisfy aero and mechanical design requirements. Also, it becomes a highly challenging task to assess the impact of design changes on the downstream design phase for realistic trade-offs. This paper focuses on providing an Integrated Design approach called IPD system (Integrated Preliminary Design) to reduce design cycle time (by 50 % per design iteration) and improve fidelity of engine cross-sections at the preliminary design stage (weight & cost prediction improvement by 5%). The IPD system smoothly connects different multi-design disciplines including Cycle design, Flowpath design, nacelle aeroline design and system level mechanical and architectural design across all conceptual and preliminary design stages. Apart from system level design, the IPD system helps the designer to create components iteratively and update the system level model accordingly arriving at a solution that meets aero and mechanical design requirements. This design approach also provides a high fidelity system plan to optimize the system level design that can meet performance, weight and cost requirements