The development and application of a three-dimensional inverse design for turbomachinery blades is described in this paper. The method solves for the blade geometry based on the prescribed mass-averaged swirl velocity across the blade span and a fixed tangential blade thickness.The design method can be used with any existing solver solving the same flow equations without any modifications to the blade surface wall boundary condition.
The inverse method is validated using the transonic annular nozzle and is reapplied to redesign the two blades. In both cases, the method is applied to good effect in controlling the development of the transonic flow.