UNCLASSIFIED/UNLIMITEDNATO RTO Lecture Series AVT-167 Strategies for Optimization and Automated Design of Gas Turbine Engines: Cultural Issues Jack Cofer,

UNCLASSIFIED/UNLIMITEDNATO RTO Lecture Series AVT-167

Strategies for Optimization and Automated Design of Gas Turbine Engines:Cultural Issues

Jack Cofer, Industry Lead, Turbomachinery

SIMULIA Strategy & Marketing

NATO RTO Lecture Series AVT-167, Montreal, Canada, October 27, 2009

UNCLASSIFIED/UNLIMITEDNATO RTO Lecture Series AVT-167 2

Today’s Business Challenges

Competition is brutal and global

To stay competitive, companies must constantly strive to improve quality and performance, and reduce design cycle time and cost

Design and manufacturing sites are frequently separated by great distances geographically, putting tremendous strain on communications

Companies must rely on suppliers for critical components to reduce costs, thus adding risk to delivery cycles, performance, and reliability

Engineering manpower increasingly is being outsourced on a global basis, leading to significant management challenges

The Internet has dramatically increased the pace of business, straining existing legacy design systems, databases, and computer resources

Companies are finding it harder to keep up with the pace of rapidly changing technologies in the face of shrinking resources


The Engineering Manager’s Challenges

Managers no longer have control over all of the resources needed to get the job done

They must work with multiple teams across departmental and organizational boundaries

Experts in key engineering disciplines are harder to find and harder to retain

The “greybeards” are retiring and the younger engineers coming up behind them are not as experienced

Expert knowledge is lost if it is not captured in the design process

As more engineering tasks are outsourced, often to the other side of the world, it is more difficult to coordinate design activities

Controlling the quality of engineering resources is also more difficult

Forced to reduce staffing to cut costs, managers must find new ways to do more work with fewer highly experienced engineers


The Design Engineer’s Challenges

The turbomachinery design environment:Most turbomachines operate in extreme conditions of temperature, pressure, and stress

Forces are extremely high in rotating components

This extreme environment put many disciplines in conflict

Aerodynamics, mechanical stress and vibration, heat transfer, material properties, reliability, life prediction, etc.

Customers demand highly efficient operation and long life with short delivery cycles and low design, manufacturing, and maintenance costs

The turbomachinery design process:

Mostly trial-and-error, guided by engineer’s experience

Time-consuming, error-prone

Engineers spend most of their time preparing data, typing input files, chasing output files

Limited number of design evaluations can be done in the available time

An optimum is seldom achieved before time runs out

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Gas Turbine Design: An Exercise in Managing Complexity

Customer Requirements

Cycle Optimization

Inlet/Exhaust Design

Compressor Design

Turbine Design

Rotor/Bearing Design

Casing Design

Heat Exchanger Design

Combustor Design

Layout Drawings

Detailed Drawings

Meet Requirements?

Data to Manufacturing

YES

NO

Performance

Operating Cost

Reliability/Life

Noise

Emissions

Delivery

Stability

-- Surge Margin

-- Range

Performance

-- Design

-- Off-Design

Controls

Aux. Systems

Multidisciplinary andvery complex

“Modern gas turbine design is an exercise in managing complexity. It is also a brutally multidisciplinary affair.”

- Brent StaubachManager, Systems Optimization

Pratt & Whitney


The Engineer’s Reality …

The input file formats for all of these codes are different!

What directory is that executable in?

My fingers are sore from all this typing!

#@%$, another bad run due to a typo!

I’ll never solve this problem! I can’t keep track of all the variables and constraints!

Where is the stress analyst when I need him?

That vendor won’t call me back and I need his input!

I’ll be lucky if I can do five runs before my deadline, and that’s not enough!

My manager is always beating on me to hurry up! I’m working as fast as I can!

If I only had more time, I’m sure I could find a better design ...

Aarrgh!!!

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The Engineer’s Dream …

I can access all of the simulation codes and CPUs I need with the click of a mouse.I can mix and match the codes to create a design process on the fly.I can interface with my suppliers’ codes. I can use the same consistent graphical interface for all of the codes. Data transfer between codes is automatic so I don’t have to worry about it – and I don’t have to type my fingers to the bone!I have time to evaluate as many design alternatives as I need to make sure I have the best design.I can be more creative and innovative.I can spend more time improving models and understanding the physics.I can keep my manager happy and he will give me a raise!

Wouldn’t that be nice...

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Achieving the Dream

To meet all of these challenges and achieve the dream, companies must find ways to:

Collaborate seamlessly across engineering disciplines, organizations, and suppliers to take advantage of all available global resources in manpower, computing power, and manufacturing capacity

Automate the design processes to reduce design cycle time and cost

Capture expert knowledge, design rules, and manufacturing requirements

Implement automated systems for multidisciplinary design exploration and optimization to achieve design goals with the best balance across multiple disciplines to meet customer needs

8Graphic courtesy of J. B. Staubach, P&W

Application Control ServerMaster Workflow

PMDO Work flow

Requirements

Publish results

AERO Work flow Rotor Work flow

Aero 2D-3D

Rotor Design

Etc.

PMDO

Turbine Rotor

Turbine Airfoil


Meeting the Challenge

The clear solution to meeting the business and engineering challenges is to implement collaborative automated multidisciplinary design exploration, optimization, and data management systems

However, this is disruptive technology that upsets the status quo, which naturally generates resistance

How do you get people - engineers and their managers - to accept change and embrace new ways of doing things?

How do you get people to break down the walls between disciplines, departments, and engineering and manufacturing?


Nothing Is Ever Easy…

As has been noted throughout history, it is never easy to implement change…

“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in it’s success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for his enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions and lukewarm, indifferent, uninterested defenders in those who may do well under the new.”

- Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)

“Propose to an Englishman any principle, or any instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the English mind is directed to find a difficulty, a defect, or an impossibility in it. If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will pronounce it impossible: if you peel a potato with it before his eyes, he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple.”

- Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

“Never, ever underestimate the difficulty in getting people to change. Under stress, people revert to what they know.”

– Tim Ambridge, Director, PLM Business Processes, Bombardier Aerospace (2006 Engineous User’s Conference)


Barriers to Achieving the Dream

Lack of definition or understanding of the design process

“Not Invented Here” Syndrome - “We didn’t invent it, so it can’t be any good”

The weight of History - “We have always done it this way”

Inertia - “Why change when what we have now works OK?”

Fear of risk - “What if it doesn’t work?”

Managers who feel threatened if existing design systems are rendered obsolete

Barriers between departments or divisions - resistance to integration

Engineers who feel that they will be “automated” out of a job

“We are so busy we don’t have time to consider anything new”

Natural skepticism of engineers - “It sounds too good to be true”

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However, There Is Hope…

As has been also been noted throughout history, it is possible to implement change…

Recall Charge Babbage’s comment on the English mind (i.e. the skeptic):

“Propose to an Englishman any principle, or any instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the English mind is directed to find a difficulty, a defect, or an impossibility in it. If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will pronounce it impossible: if you peel a potato with it before his eyes, he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple…”

And here is the completion of that comment:

“…Impart the same principle or show the same machine to an American or to one of our Colonists, and you will observe that the whole effort of his mind is to find some new application of the principle, some new use for the instrument.”

- Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

We must all embrace the pioneering spirit of the early 19th century and use it to forge ahead into the frontier of the 21st!


Addressing the Skeptic

If an engineer or manager expresses skepticism, or says “our products are so good there is no need for improvement,” ask him these five questions:

1. Does the product operate at 100% efficiency and reliability?

2. Can you design it in zero time?

3. Can you make it at zero cost?

4. Can you make it in zero time?

5. Do you have 100% market share?

If the answer to any of these questions is “No,” then there is room for improvement through automation and optimization!


“Nobody will fly for a thousand years.” -- Wilbur Wright, 1901

Two years before Orville’s first successful flight

Do Not Let the Skeptics Deter You!


Steps to Successful Implementation ofan Automated Design Environment (1 of 2)

1. Have confidence that it can be done!

Remember that design automation/optimization is a proven technology that has been successfully implemented on a large scale in many global gas turbine companies such as GE Aircraft Engines, Honeywell, P&W, Rolls-Royce, and Siemens

These systems have been tested by hundreds of skeptical engineers worldwide

Significant benefits have been reported - $M’s saved, 10X cycle time reduction, improved performance, increased market share

2. Understand the landscape and set the stage for success

Identify champions to lead the effort – the “pioneers” - at multiple levels and in multiple functions, including manufacturing

People with the “vision,” energy, and will to build a better design process

Engineers and first line managers who are willing and eager to lead the charge

VPs who can write the checks and dedicate the resources

Identify the resistance. Sometimes management must make it happen by fiat to overcome entrenched resistance.

Find reasons to give everyone a stake in the success – appeal to their own self-interest

The success of the champions will gradually overcome the negativity of the resisters, who will finally realize they must get aboard or be left behind.

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Steps to Successful Implementation ofan Automated Design Environment (2 of 2)

3. Dedicate resources

Dedicate resources to focus on implementation without other distractions

Management must encourage and engage the engineers – the principal users – to be part of the solution, to use their critical thinking skills to define and improve the design process and build the system

4. Build the system

Define the design process! (Companies that are ISO 9000 certified have already done this)

Develop a roadmap for implementation and get first line and VP-level management buy-in

Think big, but start small! Do not try to do too much all at once. Start with a part of the overall process that produces significant pain, but that can produce a big gain if addressed, such as preliminary design or airfoil aerodynamic design.

Take a “building block” approach - bring in one block at a time and add more as successes are achieved and you develop confidence in the system.

Fix flaws in your simulation codes, processes, and network as they are discovered, and examine your design rules and constraints to make sure they make sense.

Be flexible and willing to modify your process and optimization strategy as the system helps you explore your design space.

5. Communicate successes

Communicate success stories to multiple levels as widely as possible as soon as they occur to build management support for future success.

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To ensure that the best possible products enter the marketplace, the engineers of the future will be managers of advanced technology, and not just number crunchers.

They will be knowledgeable in multiple disciplines

They will understand the entire design process and the interactions between all of its elements

They will assemble the right tools and computing resources from many available sources through web-based networks

They will understand the entire product lifecycle and its economics, from design to manufacturing to service in the field

They will work with many suppliers and outsourcing contractors

They will have a good understanding of the underlying physics to be able to assess the validity of design solutions

They will be proficient in multidisciplinary design optimization

The Engineer of Tomorrow – A Manager of Advanced Technology


Closing Comments

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

– Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

As engineers, it is incumbent on all of us to be the agents of change – the pioneers – within our companies, to ensure that we develop the most efficient, reliable, cost effective, and clean gas turbine engines to meet the needs of our customers, to contribute to the security of our countries, and to improve the health of our planet.


[email protected]

Thank you!

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UNCLASSIFIED/UNLIMITEDNATO RTO Lecture Series AVT-167 Strategies for Optimization and Automated Design of Gas Turbine Engines: Cultural Issues Jack Cofer,