Optimization of airfoils for minimum pitching moment and compressibility drag coefficients

Abstract

This paper concerns a numerical optimization method for designing airfoils based on adjoint method. The goal of present work is to reduce the compressibility drag or pitching moment of transonic airfoils without compromising on the lift coefficient. A new cost function based on this requirement is defined and the corresponding adjoint equations are discussed in details. At the end, by demonstrating some numerical results, we show that this technique is capable of converging to the optimum design point corresponding to the initial geometry of the airfoil.