Comparison of Shape Optimization Techniques Coupled
with Genetic Algorithm for a Wind Turbine Airfoil
Erkan Orman
Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Anadolu University
Eskisehir, Turkey
eorman@anadolu.edu.tr
Abstract— Airfoil optimization is an important subject for wind
turbines in order to increase the flow efficiency along the blade
sections. The first important subject for airfoil shape
optimization is the mathematical description of airfoil or its
parametrical form. This subject directly effects computational
cost of the optimization process and general efficiency of the
airfoil. In this study, NACA 2411 airfoil has been optimized by a
genetic algorithm coupled with an airfoil analysis software.
Geometry of the airfoil is represented by two different airfoil
shape parameterization techniques namely; PARSEC method
(parametric section) and CST method (class/shape function
transformation).
The objective of this study is to find the best airfoil
representation scheme which consumes less computational effort
and gives the best lift to drag ratio in a large design space for the
ideal aerodynamic design optimization. In order to generate
different airfoil shapes and control the genetic algorithm, Matlab
subroutines were developed in accordance with different airfoil
parameterization schemes mentioned above. These airfoil shapes
are used as individuals for the genetic algorithm. A Matlab script
was embedded into the code that calls the potential flow solver
software (XFOIL) to analyze the flow around the airfoils. Fitness
function of each individual is specified as “lift to drag ratio”
obtained by the flow analysis.
The aim of the optimization process is to find the unique airfoil
shape which gives the maximum of the lift to drag ratios in a
certain solution space. The flow is assumed to be inviscid and
uniform for the sake of simplicity. Mach number, Reynolds
number and design lift coefficient are chosen as 0.03, 350,000 and
1, respectively. Tournament selection method is used to select the
individuals which have high fitness values for the next
generation. The genetic operators; cross-over and mutation rates
are chosen as 0.45 and 0.1 respectively. The code can be executed
until a pre-defined number of iterations or a certain convergence
criteria is obtained. In the study, population and generation
numbers are chosen as 8 and 200 respectively. Fitness increment
with respect to generation is plotted in order to evaluate the
results.
The results for each shape function are compared in terms of
sensitivity to the optimized geometry and computational cost.
Design spaces for each parameterization method were balanced
by changing the design parameters so that the control areas on
the specified curves were similar. Hence, parameterization
schemes are compared with respect to the CPU time, the number
of scheme parameters and the best fitness values achieved by the
analysis code. The results have showed that the final geometry
978-1-4673-7676-1/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
1
Gökhan Durmuş
Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Anadolu University
Eskisehir, Turkey
gdurmus@anadolu.edu.tr
obtained by CST method is superior to the geometry obtained by
PARSEC parameterization method for the specified flow
conditions.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................... 1
2. AIRFOIL SHAPE PARAMETERIZATION METHODS . 2
3. COMPARISION AND ANALYSIS ............................... 3
4. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION .................................. 5
REFERENCES ............................................................... 6
BIOGRAPHY ................................................................. 7
1. INTRODUCTION
In the area of aerodynamic design, one of the typical problem is
to find the optimum shape which is efficiently suited for a
specified range of flow conditions. Airfoil optimization has a
crucial role for wind turbines in order to increase the efficiency
along the blade sections. For wind turbines “optimum shape of
an airfoil” means that it minimizes some costs like drag and
pitching moment effectively while satisfying the given
performance constraints so that it extracts maximum energy
from the wind.
Generally, numerical shape optimization methods can be
classified into two general approaches. First approach is direct
design approach and the second one is inverse design
approach [1]. In the direct design approach, a reference airfoil
geometry is to be specified first. This airfoil geometry is
analyzed by a flow analysis code. Then, resulting flow field
variables which are obtained by the analysis code are
evaluated. When the airfoil geometry meets the design
requirements, the process is terminated otherwise the
geometry of airfoil is changed by a parameterization scheme
and analyzed again. This iterative process continues until the
design requirements are met. Direct design approach is
presented in Fig.1.

Figure 1. Direct airfoil design process [2]
In the inverse design approach, the algorithm searches for an
airfoil shape to satisfy desired airflow characteristics (such as
the pressure and velocity distribution or the skin friction
distribution etc.). Airfoil geometry is calculated from the
desired variables that define performance and aerodynamic
characteristics for the specified airflow condition. If the
desired performance with an acceptable geometry is obtained,
the process is terminated [1].
parameterization method was developed specifically for
airfoils and wings by Sobieczky [5]. In this method, twelve
important geometrical properties which effect aerodynamic
characteristics of an airfoil are used as design variables. The
PARSEC parameters for an airfoil are presented in Figure 3.
Figure 3. PARSEC parameters [5]
In PARSEC method, upper and lower curves that define the
airfoil upper and lower surfaces are fitted by using the 6th
order polynomial equation as shown in Eq.1. The coefficients
(an) are then calculated by solving the system of linear
equations constructed by the PARSEC parameters.
భ
ܻ ൌ σ଺௡ୀଵ ܽ௡ Ǥ ܺ ሺ௡ିమሻ  

In the Figure 4, four new airfoil geometries generated with

different PARSEC parameters are presented as an example.


Figure 2. Inverse airfoil design process [2] Figure 4. Airfoil geometries generated via PARSEC
method
In this study, direct design approach is used. Iterative process
is controlled by a genetic algorithm code to be able to CST Method
minimize computational cost.
In CST parameterization method, general form of
mathematical expression that represents airfoil geometry (Eq.
2. AIRFOIL SHAPE PARAMETERIZATION METHODS 2) is defined as product of “class function” and “shape
An important process of airfoil optimization is function”.
parameterization of the airfoil geometry. One important point
୶ ୶ ୶ ୶ ௜ ୶
for the airfoil shape parameterization is the number of design Ƀ ቀ ቁ ൌ ට ቂͳ െ ቃ σே
௜ୀ଴ ‫ܣ‬௜ ቂ ቃ ൅ ቂ ቃ Ƀ ் (2)
ୡ ୡ ୡ ୡ ୡ
variables. Too many design variables give more control over
the airfoil shape whereas are higher in cost in terms of CPU
time. Some of the important parameterization techniques used In Eq. 2, the formula which is given in Eq. 3 gives the unique
in literature are discrete approach, Joukowski transformation, shape of the geometry between the round nose and sharp aft
splines or polynomial approximations of curves, Hicks-Henne end of the airfoil. This formula defines a well-behaved
shape functions, PARSEC and Kulfan’s shape/class functions analytic characteristic because the term √(x/c) which is the
method (CST) [3, 4]. source of nonanalytic characteristic of the general
mathematical expression for airfoils (Eq. 2) is not included
PARSEC Method [6].
PARSEC parameterization method is used for representing ୶ ୶ ௜
upper and lower surface curves of the airfoil. PARSEC ܵ ቀ ቁ ൌ σே
௜ୀ଴ ‫ܣ‬௜ ቂ ቃ (3)
ୡ ୡ

2
In Eq. 2, the formula which is given in Eq. 4 is defined as If Bernstein polynomial is used as shape function, the unit
“class function”. shape function can be decomposed into further components. A
Bernstein polynomial of order N is composed of n+1 terms.
ேଵ ୶ ୶ ேଵ ୶ ேଶ These terms has the form which is given in Eq. 5.
‫ܥ‬ேଶ ቀ ቁൌቂ ቃ ቂͳ െ ቃ (4)
ୡ ୡ ୡ
ܵ௥Ǥ௡ ሺ‫ݔ‬ሻ ൌ ‫ܭ‬௥ǡ௡ ‫ ݔ‬௥ ሺͳ െ ‫ݔ‬ሻ௡ି௥ (5)
In Eq. 2, N1 and N2 values are used as 0.5 and 1 respectively.
Different N1 and N2 values mathematically defines a variety ‫ܭ‬௥ǡ௡ value in Eq. 5 is the binomial coefficients defined as in
of basic class for geometric shapes. This basic class definition the Eq. 6.
via different combinations of exponents in the class function
௡Ǩ
gives different basic geometrical shapes like airfoils, wedge, ‫ܭ‬௥ǡ௡ ൌ (6)
௥ Ǩሺെ”ሻǨ
cone, rectangle, ellipse etc. [6]. These geometric shapes
obtained by class function and unit shape function are given in
Figure 5. All unit shape function components can be scaled with proper
factors to define different airfoil shapes.

3. COMPARISON AND ANALYSIS

PARSEC parameter range is calculated from NACA 2411
airfoil coordinates via a CAD software and reference [8]. First,
the coordinates of the airfoil are imported to the CAD software
and then some constraints related with the airfoil are
performed. The operation range to generate new airfoils is
determined according to the PARSEC parameters obtained
from NACA 2411 are as shown in the Table I.

Table 1. NACA 2411 Parsec Parameters Range [6]

Range for NACA

2411
PARSEC Parameters
Lower Upper
Figure 5. Shapes obtained by class function and unit shape Bound Bound
function [8]
P1-Upper Leading Edge Radius, Rle-up 0.020 0.023

Here, unit shape function can be decomposed into two or more P0-Lower Leading Edge Radius, Rle-lo 0.009 0.007
component shape functions. If it is decomposed into two, the P2-Position of Upper Crest Point, Xup 0.32 0.37
first one ܵ1=[1−x/c] means to an airfoil with a round nose and
P3-Upper Crest Point, Yup 0.077 0.08
zero boat-tail angle. The second component ܵ2=[x/c] means an
airfoil with zero nose radius and a finite boat-tail angle. If the P4-Upper Crest Curvature, YXXup -0.65 -0.63
two component unit shape functions scale with a factor, P5-Position of Lower Crest Point, Xlo 0.1747 0.1749
different airfoil shapes can be obtained [6]. The two
components of unit shape function and scaling factor KR are P6-Lower Crest Point, Ylo -0.034 -0.032
shown in Figure 6. P7-Lower Crest Curvature, YXXlo 0.60 0.62
P10-Trailing Edge Direction Angle, αTE -4.90 -4.55
P11-Trailing Edge Wedge Angle, βTE 15.0 15.10
P9-Trailing Edge Thickness (TTE) and P8-Trailing Edge Offset
(Toff) are zero.

In order to prepare the solution space for CST method, the

scaling factors for NACA 2411 geometry is obtained by using
the original coordinates of airfoil. By changing these scaling
factor coefficients in a pre-defined range, new airfoil shapes
which are based on NACA 2411 is obtained. These parameter
range defines the design spaces for CST parameterization
scheme.

Design spaces for PARSEC and CST methods are balanced by

Figure 6. Components of unit shape function and scaling
changing the number and range of design parameters so that
factor KR [8]

3
 the control areas on the specified curves are similar. 10 design solution space. In Figure 7, PARSEC solution space and CST
variables for PARSEC method are used to be able to generate solution space are presented.
different airfoils whereas the number of design variables for
CST method is 8. Hence, this gives approximately 2.5E27
candidate solutions for each parameterization scheme. The
numbers in the range for each design variables for two
different parameterization scheme are also given in Table 2.

Table 2. Numbers of design variables for PARSEC and

CST [8]
PARSEC Number of CST Number of
Parameters PARSEC Parameters CST
Parameters Parameters
P1 512 Aup_5 4096
P0 512 Aup_10 2048 Figure 7. Solution spaces for PARSEC (blue-upper) and
P2 512 Aup_21 2048 CST (red-lower) methods
P3 512 Aup_27 2048
P4 512 Alo_5 4096
P5 512 Alo_10 4096 In Figure 8, solution spaces for PARSEC (blue) and CST (red)
P6 512 Alo_21 2048 parameterization methods are drawn on the same graph to
P7 512 Alo_27 2048 compare.
P8 1
P9 1
P10 512
P11 1024
Solution Space 2.4759e+27 Solution Space 2.4759e+27

The range for PARSEC parameters is obtained basically from

the reference [8]. The operation range of scaling factors for
CST method is defined according to the PARSEC parameters.
Also a visual trial-error process has been made to be able to
move airfoil shapes in a similar solution space. The aim of this
process is to find the proper upper and lower bounds of design
variable ranges that give similar solution space for both
schemes in order to compare. CST scaling factors extracted
from NACA 2411 are as shown in the Table 3.

Table 3. NACA 2411 CST Parameters Range [6]

Original Range for NACA 2411 (CST)
CST
Value of Ratios for Org. Figure 8. Solution spaces for PARSEC (blue) and CST
Scaling Number of
Scaling Scaling Parameter (red) methods on the same figure
Factors Parameters
Parameter Values
Aup_5 20223 6e-06 4096
A genetic algorithm is used for the optimization process of the
Aup_10 -2.874e+06 1e-08 2048 chosen airfoil geometry. A Matlab routine was developed to
Aup_21 8.3992e+05 1e-07 2048 generate different airfoil shapes as individuals and to control
the whole optimization process. Design parameters for each
Aup_27 371.81 2e-05 2048 different parameterization schemes are subjected to crossover
Alo_5 -2802.1 4e-05 4096 and mutation via binomial representation to be able to give
better individuals for the next generation. “Lift to drag ratio”
Alo_10 3.0413e+05 5e-07 4096 obtained by the analysis code, XFOIL [9] is chosen as fitness
- function of each individual to determine the airfoil
Alo_21 5e-06 2048
1.2432e+05 performance. As an initial flow condition, all individuals have
to satisfy design lift coefficient. The design lift coefficient in
Alo_27 -70.921 5e-03 2048
this study is chosen as 1.0. The flow is assumed to be inviscid
and uniform for the sake of simplicity. Mach number and
In Table 3, ratios in the column 3 are used as multiplier of Reynolds number are chosen as 0.03 and 350,000 respectively.
original scaling parameters to be able to calculate lower and Tournament selection method is used to select the individuals
upper bounds. These ratio values are obtained in a trial-error which have high fitness values for the next generation. The
process which give similar airfoil shape movement in a similar genetic operators; cross-over and mutation rates are chosen as

4
0.45 and 0.01 respectively. Population and generation numbers
are chosen as 8 and 200 respectively. Fitness increment with
respect to generation is plotted in order to evaluate the results.
The code is executed until convergence criteria is reached.
4. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION
The convergence histories for 200 generations are illustrated in
Figure 9. Best individuals in the generations (shown in red) are
generally obtained in the L/D range between 75 and 80 bounds
for the PARSEC method (upper graph). Mean L/D values
(blue) for each generation are in the middle between the bounds
of 70 and 75 for the same method. For the CST method (lower
graph) however, it can be seen that general trend of best
individuals in the generations are obtained in the L/D range
between 80 and 85 bounds and mean L/D trend for each
generation can be seen roughly close to the upper bounds
between 70 and 75.
The original airfoil geometry gives maximum L/D value 73.2
where drag coefficient is 0.01367 and angle of attack is 6.6°.
The drag coefficient of optimized PARSEC geometry is
0.01193 at 5.7° angle of attack for the specified design lift
coefficient. Also, the drag coefficient of optimized CST
geometry is 0.01145 at 5.8° angle of attack. In terms of
maximum L/D values obtained at the specified design lift
coefficient, it is 83.8 for PARSEC geometry and 87.3 for CST
geometry. Hence, it corresponds an increase 14.5% in L/D for
the PARSEC geometry and an increase 19.4% for the CST
geometry with respect to the original NACA 2411 airfoil.
Some increment and decrement values that corresponds to
given “cl”, “cd” and “cl/cd” values are shown in the Table 4
after the optimization process.
Table 4. Change in aerodynamic performance coefficients
Orginal
NACA Optimized Optimized inc./dec. inc./dec.
2411 (PARSEC) (CST) (PARSEC) (CST)

Cl 1.0 1.0 1.0 - -

Cd 0.01367 0.01193 0.01145 -12.7% -16.2%

Cl/Cd 73.2 83.8 87.3 14.5% 19.4%

Comp.
- 651 771 - -
Time (s)

Similarly, cl-cd variations for the original, PARSEC and CST

optimized geometries are drawn to compare in Figures 11-12.

Figure 9. Convergence history of PARSEC (Upper) and

CST (lower) methods

Figure 10 shows the airfoil geometries in comparison obtained

after the optimization process. Upper part of the related figure
shows the original NACA 2411 airfoil (drawn in black) and
PARSEC (drawn in blue) geometries and the middle part
shows the original NACA 2411 (draw in black) and CST
(drawn in red) geometries. Also, lower part of the Figure gives
all the three geometries on the same graph.

Figure 11. cl-cd variation for original, PARSEC and CST

geometries

Figure 10. Geometries obtained after optimization process

5

Figure 12. cl-cd variation for original, PARSEC and CST
geometries
Figure 12 is the zoom view of the rectangular area shown in
the Figure 11. In terms of CPU time, CST method completed
the process in 771 seconds while this time for PARSEC was
651 seconds which is 15.5% lower. Although this relative
CPU time difference is too low to discuss, it may be much
more crucial if the geometry becomes three dimensional and
the flow solver is chosen much more capable. Hence, it can be
concluded that the geometry obtained by the CST method is
superior in overall to the geometry obtained by the PARSEC
method after the optimization process. Also, it is important to
emphasize again; CST method gives about 5 percent more
increment in L/D according to PARSEC method.
6
REFERENCES
[1] B. A. Gardner and M. S. Selig, “Airfoil design using a
genetic algorithm and an inverse method, 41st Aerospace
Sciences Meeting and Exhibit, AIAA, Reno, Nevada, 6-9
January 2003.
[2] P. Giguère, “Part IV: Blade Geometry Optimization”,
Department of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, NREL, 1999.
[3] Vecchia et al., “An airfoil shape optimization technique
coupling PARSEC parameterization and evolutionary
algorithm”, Aerospace Science and Technology, Elsevier,
2013.
[4] J. Hajek, “Parameterization of airfoils and its application in
aerodynamic optimization”, WDS'07 Proceedings of
Contributed Papers, Part I, pp. 233–240, 2007.
[5] H. Sobieczky, “Parametric airfoils and wings”, Notes on
Numerical Fluid Mechanics, vol. 68, Vieweg Verlag, 1998.
[6] R. Mukesh, K. Lingadurai and U. Selvakumar, “Airfoil
shape optimization using non-traditional optimization
technique and its validation”, Journal of King Saud
University-Engineering Sciences, Elsevier, 2013.
[7] B. M. Kulfan, “Universal parametric geometry
representation method”, Journal of Aircraft, AIAA, vol. 45,
no.1, 2008.
[8] B. M. Kulfan, and John E. Bussoletti, "Fundamental
Parametric Geometry Representations for Aircraft
Component Shapes”, 11th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary
Analysis and Optimization Conference, Portsmouth,
Virginia, 2006.
[9] M. Drela, XFOIL: Interactive program for the design and
analysis of subsonic isolated airfoils,
http://web.mit.edu/drela/Public/web/xfoil/
 BIOGRAPHY
Erkan Orman is a lecturer in the
Department of Airframe and
Powerplant Maintenance at Faculty
of Aeronautics and Astronautics of
the Anadolu University in Eskişehir,
Turkey. He received his Master’s
degree in the area of wind turbine
performance, from Anadolu
University in 2010. He is currently
a registered student in PhD program after Master’s
degree in the Graduate School of Science of Anadolu
University. His research interests include low Reynolds
number flows, computational fluid dynamics, turbo
machines, wind turbines, unmanned aerial vehicles with
research focuses on shape optimization, geometry
parameterization and optimization algorithms.

Gökhan Durmuş is an Assistant

Professor in the Department of
Airframe and Powerplant
Maintenance at Faculty of
Aeronautics and Astronautics of
the Anadolu University in
Eskişehir, Turkey. Prof Durmus
received a Bachelor of Science
degree in Aeronautical
Engineering, a Master of Science
degree in Aeronautics, and a Doctor of Science degree in
Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Middle East
Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. He held
postdoctoral appointments at the Institute of Fluid
Mechanics (LSTM) at the Technical Faculty of the
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg,
Germany. His research areas include computational fluid
dynamics, aircraft design and optimization.