An automatic optimization approach for the structural design of turbine blade shroud is presented and applied to the optimal design of a zigzag shroud in this paper. It integrates commercial CAD and CAE softwares into optimization procedure iSIGHT. According to the normal rules of the shroud design and experience, this paper advises a zigzag shroud which is fit for a kind of turbine blade. The parametric model of the shroud is established and the pre-twist angle parameter is taken into consideration. The structural intensity performance of the shroud, which is used to compute the optimal objective and constraints during optimization, is determined by conducting coupled thermal-structural analysis of shrouded turbine blade using the commercial Finite Element code ANSYS. Two application examples of the optimization approach are presented, with optimal objective functions of shrouded blade mass and maximum shroud contact pressure respectively. The latter includes the pre-twist angle as one of design variables. Mechanical and geometry constraints are applied on the design to ensure that the optimized design meets requirements for feasibility of engineering criteria. Simulation results from shroud optimizations by means of the optimization approach prove that the performance of the shroud can be improved significantly through structure optimization. The optimization approach provides an effective method to design and optimize the similar complicated models.
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