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# Tutorials¶

This tutorial is intended for users who wish to apply the BladeDesigner. For a developers guide read Developers’ Guide.

## How to create a camber line¶

### Imports¶

In order to create a camber line and visualize it, we need to import some libraries. For visualization purposes we use the popular matplotlib package. Camber lines are available in the bladedesigner.camberlines package. If you’re curious what camber lines are available, check the source code, or use a python shell with auto completion, i.e. ipython. For this tutorial a NACA 2 digit camberline is used, hence N2DCamberLine. In order to discretize the camber line (a required step), a distribution of points along the camber line must be chosen. This tutorial uses a Chebyshev distribution.

 1 2 3 4 import matplotlib.pyplot as plt from bladedesigner.camberlines import N2DCamberLine from bladedesigner.distributions import Chebyshev 

### The camber line itself¶

It is time to start working on the camberline itself. A function is defined (for convenience, because we need it later on) which creates the camber line: Line 7 and 8 initialize the instances for the camber line and for the distribution. The following 3 lines define the camber line and its discretization by setting their parameters. They depend on the type of camber line and discretization and hence may vary for different types. The resulting camber line instance is the returned by the function.

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 import matplotlib.pyplot as plt from bladedesigner.camberlines import N2DCamberLine from bladedesigner.distributions import Chebyshev def get_n2d_camber_line(): camber_line = N2DCamberLine() camber_line.distribution = Chebyshev() camber_line.max_camber = 0.02 camber_line.max_camber_position = 0.4 camber_line.sample_rate = 100 return camber_line 

### Plotting preperations¶

Now we need to create a figure for the plotting of the camber line. See the matplotlib documentation and tutorials for details. For convenience a short summary is given: An empty figure is created in line 14, which is filled with a single empty subplot in the following line. Then the grid for the coordinate system is activated. Finally the x- and y-axis are locked together with an aspect ratio of 1 and scaled to the data.

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 import matplotlib.pyplot as plt from bladedesigner.camberlines import N2DCamberLine from bladedesigner.distributions import Chebyshev def get_n2d_camber_line(): camber_line = N2DCamberLine() camber_line.distribution = Chebyshev() camber_line.max_camber = 0.02 camber_line.max_camber_position = 0.4 camber_line.sample_rate = 100 return camber_line fig = plt.figure() ax = fig.add_subplot(111) ax.grid() ax.set_aspect(1, adjustable="datalim") 

### Final plotting¶

In line 19 the camber line function is called and the camber line instance created. All there is left to do is to plot the already created camber line, or its dicrete points respectively.

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 import matplotlib.pyplot as plt from bladedesigner.camberlines import N2DCamberLine from bladedesigner.distributions import Chebyshev def get_n2d_camber_line(): camber_line = N2DCamberLine() camber_line.distribution = Chebyshev() camber_line.max_camber = 0.02 camber_line.max_camber_position = 0.4 camber_line.sample_rate = 100 return camber_line fig = plt.figure() ax = fig.add_subplot(111) ax.grid() ax.set_aspect(1, adjustable="datalim") camber_line = get_n2d_camber_line() camber_line.vector_lines.extend(ax.plot([])) camber_line.plot_vector() ax.set_ylim(-0.5, 0.5) plt.show() 

## How to create a thickness distribution¶

### Imports¶

The imports work analogously to the previous camber line section.

 1 2 3 4 import matplotlib.pyplot as plt from bladedesigner.thickness import N4DThickness from bladedesigner.distributions import Chebyshev 

### The thickness distribution¶

A function is created, just like in the previous example, for convenience reasons (we need that function later). The thickness and distribution instances are initialized, and set with parameters.

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 import matplotlib.pyplot as plt from bladedesigner.thickness import N4DThickness from bladedesigner.distributions import Chebyshev def get_n4d_thickness(): thickness_distribution = N4DThickness() thickness_distribution.distribution = LinearDistribution() thickness_distribution.max_thickness = 0.12 thickness_distribution.sample_rate = 100 return thickness_distribution 

### Plotting¶

Here only the preveously discussed plotting funcations are added.

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 import matplotlib.pyplot as plt from bladedesigner.thickness import N4DThickness from bladedesigner.distributions import Chebyshev def get_n4d_thickness(): thickness_distribution = N4DThickness() thickness_distribution.distribution = Chebyshev() thickness_distribution.max_thickness = 0.12 thickness_distribution.sample_rate = 100 return thickness_distribution fig = plt.figure() ax = fig.add_subplot(111) ax.grid() ax.set_aspect(1, adjustable="datalim") thickness_distribution = get_n4d_thickness() thickness_distribution.vector_lines.extend(ax.plot([])) thickness_distribution.plot_vector() ax.set_ylim(-0.5, 0.5) plt.show() 

## How to design a blade profile¶

### Imports¶

First we need the matplotlib imports for plotting, as seen in the examples before. Next we import the type of profile we want, which is a super position profile in this tutorial. A distribution is needed again for the discretization. As final imports the camber line and thickness functions from the previous tutorials are needed. Again, if you want to find out which profile types are available, check the source code, or use an interactive python interpreter with autocompletion like ipython.

 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 import matplotlib.pyplot as plt from bladedesigner.profiles import SuperpositionProfile from bladedesigner.distributions import Chebyshev from n2dcamberline import get_n2d_camber_line from n4dthickness import get_n4d_thickness 

Next we define a function to create the superposition profile. The first thing to do is to initialize the profile instance. Then some parameters must be defined along with the initialization of the needed distribution, camber line and thickness function.

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 import matplotlib.pyplot as plt from bladedesigner.profiles import SuperpositionProfile from bladedesigner.distributions import Chebyshev from n2dcamberline import get_n2d_camber_line from n4dthickness import get_n4d_thickness def get_superposition_profile(): profile = SuperpositionProfile() profile.closed = False profile.distribution = Chebyshev() profile.sample_rate = 100 profile.camber_line = get_n2d_camber_line() profile.thickness = get_n4d_thickness() return profile 

Finally some plotting functionality is added. In this case a little more elaborate than in the previous ones, as we want to plot the camber line, the thickness function as well as the superposition of both.

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 import matplotlib.pyplot as plt from bladedesigner.profiles import SuperpositionProfile from bladedesigner.distributions import Chebyshev from n2dcamberline import get_n2d_camber_line from n4dthickness import get_n4d_thickness def get_superposition_profile(): profile = SuperpositionProfile() profile.closed = False profile.distribution = Chebyshev() profile.sample_rate = 100 profile.camber_line = get_n2d_camber_line() profile.thickness = get_n4d_thickness() return profile fig = plt.figure() ax = fig.add_subplot(111) ax.grid() ax.set_aspect(1, adjustable="datalim") profile = get_superposition_profile() profile.vector_lines.extend(ax.plot([])) profile.camber_line.vector_lines.extend(ax.plot([])) profile.thickness.vector_lines.extend(ax.plot([])) profile.plot_vector() profile.camber_line.plot_vector() profile.thickness.plot_vector() ax.set_ylim(-0.5, 0.5) plt.show() 

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ToDo...