U-bend internal cooling channel

NOTE: Before running this case, please read the instructions in NACA0012 airfoil incompressible to get an overall idea of the DAFoam optimization setup.

This is an aerothermal optimization case for a U-bend internal cooling channel. The summary of the case is as follows:

Case: Aerothermal optimization for U bend cooling channels with radiation and buoyancy

Geometry: von Karman U bend duct

Objective function: Weighted pressure loss and Nusselt number

Design variables: 114 FFD points moving in the x, y, and z directions

Constraints: Symmetry and curvature constraints (total number: 41)

Mach number: 0.02

Reynolds number: 4.2e4

Mesh cells: 4.8K

Adjoint solver: buoyantBoussinesqSimpleDAFoam

The configuration files are available at Github. To run this case, first source the DAFoam environment (see Tutorials). Then you can go into the run folder and run:

./Allrun.sh 1

The optimization progress will then be written in the log.opt file.

For this case, the optimization converges in 8 steps, see the following figure. The baseline design has CPL=1.152, Nu=76.82 and the optimized design has CPL=0.7764, Nu=78.73.

We use buoyantBoussinesqSimpleDAFoam, which contains heat transfer, buoyancy, and radiation.