Implementation of Coupled Thermo-Mechanical Topology Optimization Methods for Effective Additive Manufacturing of a Gas Turbine Component

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a relatively new technology that is making its way into different industries at a fast pace. In order to take full advantage of flexibility and freedom that this technology provides, a proper and comprehensive approach towards Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) is necessary. Topology optimization is one of the tools that is commonly used to design or redesign a component to be printed by AM technologies. Utilizing topology optimization, the best design for a component subjected to various loading conditions can be obtained. The implementation of topology optimization becomes more challenging when the part is subjected to different loading cases, especially at high thermal loads. In this thesis, a new method is proposed to perform coupled thermo-mechanical topology optimization, and then a workflow is presented to implement this method in DfAM. In the suggested guideline, the effect of different filters, as well as initial setup conditions, are considered for topology optimization. In addition, some common software tools for topology optimization are also discussed. Among the existing software systems, HyperWorks is selected to be utilized in this study due to its distinguished capabilities which offer favorable controllability over the process. Then, the proposed method and workflow for DfAM are applied in HyperWorks to redesign a gas turbine rotor seal, which is subjected to high temperature, high pressure, and centrifugal loads. Also, In order to validate the workflow and the methodology, an experimental setup is designed to test the performance of a topology optimized cantilever under thermo-mechanical loadings. The experimental results validated simulations and proved that the part designed based on thermo-mechanical optimization has a better performance overall for thermal and mechanical loads.