The geometry considered in this study was a simple fictional duct with a 90-degree bend that could resemble a component taken from an internal combustion engine. Inlet and outlet were fixed in position, shape and orientation, but everything in between was free to change. The geometry was modeled using an intelligent variable surface design in streamwise direction and 13 defining parameters that control the shape of the duct's path and cross-section. The geometry was transferred using a "colored" STEP format that allows transferring patch names. The flow solver STAR-CCM+ was used to solve the primal and adjoint equations for every variant. The fluid was air with an inlet velocity of 50m/s, which corresponds to a common gas velocity in engine parts. The overall computation time, including the meshing with about 33.000 cells, was about 6 minutes. The surface shape sensitivities were calculated by STAR-CCM+ after the adjoint simulation was completed and exported in Ensight Gold format, to be able to import this information to CAESES®. From within CAESES®, the STAR-CCM+ calculations were triggered and controlled with JAVA macros. The overall pressure drop was used as the objective function.

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