A hybrid method for optimal arrangement of turbine blades

The installation of blades in the right positions around a disc stage is a critical problem in gas turbines and jet engines. The arrangement may cause an imbalance in the rotor that affects the turbine's performance. To find the optimum positions of blades around the disc, an improved ant colony method is proposed in this article. The proposed method integrates an enhanced ant colony optimization algorithm with two exchange schemes. This hybrid approach has been applied to three industrial cases involving 90, 92 and 120 blades, respectively. Additionally, a simulation is conducted on a case from the literature that features 32 blades. The results show that the proposed hybrid method is accurate and finds the arrangement of blades with a lower imbalance in comparison with prevalent and state-of-the-art methods. The proposed method's source code and related data are freely available for download at http://airmath.ir/code/TBS.zip.