A Hybrid Method for Optimal Arrangement of Turbine Blades

Installation of blades in the right positions around a disk stage is a critical problem in repairing gas turbines and jet engines. The arrangement may cause an imbalance in the rotor that increases vibration and affects the turbine's performance and lifetime. To find the optimum positions of blades around the disk an assignment problem is proposed in this article. A solving method is then developed based on an improved ant colony optimizer. The method is accelerated in combination with two exchange schemes. The results of implementation in three industrial cases show that the proposed hybrid method is accurate. In addition, it finds the arrangement of blades with a lower imbalance than the two prevalent algorithms.