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This study proposes the use of the genetic algorithm (GA) method in hydraulic turbine optimization for renewable energy applications. The algorithm is used to optimize the performance of a two-dimensional hydrofoil cascade for an axial-flow hydraulic turbine. The potential flow around the cascade is analyzed using the surface vorticity panel method, with a modified coupling coefficient to deal with the turbine cascade. Each section of the guide vane and runner blade hydrofoil cascade is optimized to satisfy the shock-free criterion, which is the fluid dynamic ideal to achieve minimum profile losses. Comparison is also made between the direct and random switching methods for the GA crossover operator. The optimization results show that the random switching method outperforms the performance of the direct switching method in terms of the resulting solutions, as well as in terms of the computational time required to reach convergence. As an alternative to experimental trials, the performance of both turbine designs are predicted and analyzed using the three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach under several operating conditions. The simulation results show that the optimized design, which is obtained by applying the shock-free criterion using the GA, successfully improves the performance of the initial turbine design.

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