Editor’s Pick: Turbomachinery Design Suite Models Volute Pumps and Casings

By Anthony J. Lockwood

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

This is usually a slow time of year for new product introductions, which is both good and bad. The bad is that sometimes there’s little of note to tell you about. The good is that my e-mail becomes manageable and I get to write about some of the stuff I found interesting but could not get to because of time and space constraints. This year, I must tell you, is different. There have been quite a few interesting announcements, so make sure to keep an eye on DE’s news section and blogs. Anyway, here’s an excellent example of an intriguing product that I really believe will interest a bunch of you.

ADT—Advanced Design Technology—and its US distributor TDT (TURBOdesign Technology) have released version 5.2 of the TURBOdesign suite of aerodynamic and hydrodynamic software for designing turbomachinery blades such as pumps, compressors, fans, turbines, and torque converters. The software has been co-developed by a gentleman named Mehrdad Zangeneh, a professor of thermofluids at University College London England and founding director of ADT.

The big news with this release is the new TURBOdesign Volute module for designing volute pumps and casings. The gist of this module, which gets a lot of words in today’s Pick of the Week write-up, is that you can specify variable inlet flow angles and velocities circumferentially, enabling you to design a volute for non-uniform inflows. Pretty neat. But what’s catchy about this entire turbomachinery design and optimization suite is its operating philosophy—something the company calls “3D inverse design technology.”

Basically, 3D inverse design technology is a 3D design and optimization approach. In a nutshell, ADT’s software lets you define your loading criteria and then output a blade design built on those criteria. In other words, it gives you direct control by computing your blade geometry for a specified distribution of pressure, which, in turn, controls the behavior of the flow on the blade. That’s pretty much the opposite—i.e., inverse—of how most other turbomachinery design systems work. This approach seems like it could shorten development times dramatically because it eliminates many CFD analyses and CAD redesigns.

The TURBOdesign suite is modular. It encompasses modules for aero/hydro-dynamic design of turbomachinery blades, third-party CAE/CAD integration,  CFD solving for compressible and incompressible turbomachinery flows,  turbomachinery design optimization, volute modeling, and 1D sizing of preliminary designs of turbomachinery components. It runs on mid-range Windows-based engineering workstations. It’s sold in individual modules, with pricing beginning at $15,000 per module.

You can learn more about version 5.2 of ADT’s TURBOdesign suite and its new Volute module from the link over there. You’ll find links to webinars, case studies, and arranging for a demo license. Make sure to hit the link to ore details on the Volute module. There you’ll find what is essentially a tutorial on the volute design process. TURBOdesign sounds like a really interesting product that, excuse me, you might get all pumped up over.

Thanks,  Pal. — Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood
Editor at Large, Desktop Engineering

Read today’s pick of the week write-up.

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