Panel method in active use

In a cooperation project* with the Institute of Fluid Mechanics and Turbomachinery at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, CFD Consultants GmbH is currently developing a panel method for the fast calculation of aerodynamic coefficients of arbitrary 3D geometries.

The panel method shows its strength especially when many approximate aerodynamic calculations are required. With these methods, a large number of geometric and boundary condition variants can be carried out within a very short time, which would not be possible with other methods of fluid mechanics, neither economically nor in terms of time.

During the development of the program, special attention was paid from the beginning to a simple connection to existing meshing and postprocessing tools. Thus, the program can already be actively used for projects in the company CFD Consultants GmbH today.

The following is a short description of a typical project on an unmanned cargo aircraft using the panel method:

Good news about the aviation project TR230

CFD Consultants GmbH has been significantly involved in the aviation project TR230 for many years. This project concerns the development and certification of a modern four-seater passenger aircraft. The prototype has been flying since 2013, has almost completed flight testing and is about to be certified as an experimental aircraft in Switzerland.

Investors are being sought for the type certification. Through its subsidiary iViation GmbH, intensive contacts have been established for over two years with potential investors, including from China. In mid-March, an authorized representative of a well-known Chinese state-owned company intensively inspected the project. The draft of a joint venture contract was prepared, important cooperation partners explained their contributions and the business plan was agreed. The talks were very positive and were concluded with the signing of a letter of intent.

Project PRESTIGE: In-situ visualization of flow processes in very large CFD calculation models

Jet engine © -jkb- Lizenz: CC BY-SA 3.0

As part of the aviation research programme of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy (BMWi)the joint project PRESTIGE was launched in 2018. This project brings together partners from academic research and industry and is dedicated to the further development and validation of simulation methods to improve the interdisciplinary understanding of engine systems.
One goal of the project is the numerical simulation of a transient flow through a complete engine compressor including its stationary and rotating components. In order to be able to compare the numerical investigation results with existing practical or experimental experience, a correspondingly fine grid resolution of the volume including all individual components is required. This leads to computational grids with several billion grid nodes, which can only be processed on supercomputers.
Due to the unsteady effects within the engine system, a time-dependent investigation of the processes is necessary. This generates immense amounts of backup and evaluation files, the handling of which (read and write accesses, memory requirements) is associated with high time and cost-intensive expenditure. Possibilities to significantly reduce this effort by direct processing and evaluation during the running process (“in-situ”) is part of the research work within the PRESTIGE project. In-situ visualization enables the user to extract and process results directly from the memory of the process already during the running CFD simulation
More powerful hardware and software enables ever more complex and realistic calculation models, so that in-situ evaluations will gain immensely in importance in the future.

CFD Consultants GmbH, as an industrial partner in cooperation with Intelligent Light, a leading company in the field of CFD post-processing, has made a significant contribution to the joint project and was able to develop an in-situ visualization solution and successfully implement it in a CFD code.

Pressure contours in a jet engine

This solution is not only suitable for large-scale projects, but is also interesting for all other fluidic simulation projects, especially for time-dependent investigations. This makes the method attractive for everyone who is involved in numerical flow simulation.

Contact: Birgit Hanna, CFD Consultants GmbH

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Industrial HPC User Round Table (iHURT)

Investor meeting in China

The Managing Director of CFD Consultants GmbH, Dr. Volker Kassera, participated in the 10th Chinese Entrepreneurs Convention on Technology Innovation and Cooperation & Overseas Chinese Entrpreneurs Industrial Development Forum in Yantai in the Chinese province of Shandong on 29.10.2019.

The aim of the participation was to discuss with potential investors the project financing, development, certification and commercialization of a protptype.

The group of investors is currently evaluating the project and will come to Germany for talks in March 2020.

Contact: Volker Kassera, CFD Consultants GmbH