Methodology for Optimizing Designs of Rotating Turbine Disks

A methodology for optimizing the fundamental structural designs of rotating turbine disks has been developed to aid in preliminary evaluations of various gas-turbine-engine designs. The basis for this methodology is a combination of turbine-disk and low-cycle-fatigue methodologies that was developed in pioneering work published during the years 1947 through 1965. The present methodology goes beyond the previous methodology in that its structural-analysis component is built on an enhanced mathematical model of a rotating turbine disk and is integrated with an optimization component.