Aerospace engineering has always been one of the key drivers for the CFD algorithm development. Nowadays most airplane systems are subject of fluid & heat flow analyses. One can get the lift and drag of the wings and steering surfaces as well as predict the efficiency of the turbines.
Members of our team at QuickerSim has a significant experience in the development of the state-of-the-art numerical codes in pan-European research programs (AVIO etc.). Others have worked even on military jet aircraft before. The president of our company performed calculations of aerodynamic loads for the MiG-29 jet fighter for the Polish Air Force for the purpose of its modernization.
Clearly, most well-known aerospace businesses have their own engineering departments. Still, these departments are in a constant need of new, better software tools. That’s where QuickerSim comes to cooperate. On the other hand, the engineers even in the best companies want to develop their skills. We are happy to share our knowledge in CFD and Numerical Methods <<check out our trainings>> and we are proud to advertise that we already worked with the MTU AeroEngines in Poland.
USER STORY
Small gas turbine design
QuickerSim was asked to design a small single-stage gas turbine for the Polish Air Force Institute of Technology. The design consisted of preliminary performance evaluation, CFD simulations as well as strength analysis by means of FEM calculations. We created an efficient environment for the design of small gas turbines that consisted of:
- MATLAB code for the inviscid axi-symmetrical flow prediction
- Parametric mesh generator for both the flow and solid part of the system
- FEM code for the linear structural analysis in MATLAB
Subsequently the viscous compressible flow simulations were performed in a commercial code at our disposal. They RANS-type model was based on the k-omega model together and included the so-called “rotating reference frame” model.
The CFD model provided better insight into some flow features such as the inertia-induced flow deflection as well as the structure of the wake past the turbine blade. Interestingly, the performance predicted by the inviscid model and the full CFD simulation differed only by 7%!