Section: Partnerships and Cooperations

European Initiatives

• Program: Propulsion

• Project acronym: IMPACT-AE

• Project title: Intelligent Design Methodologies for Low Pollutant Combustors for Aero-Engines

• Duration: 01/11/2011 - 31/05/2016

• Coordinator: Roll Royce Deutschland

• Other partners:

  • France: Insa of Rouen, ONERA, Snecma, Turbomeca.

  • Germany: Rolls-Royce Deutschland, MTU Aeo Engine Gmbh, DLR, Technology Institute of Karlsruhe, University of Bundeswehr (Munich)

  • Italy: AVIOPROP SRL, AVIO S.P.A., University of Florence

  • United Kingdom: Rolls Royce PLC, Cambridge University, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medecine, Loughborough University.

• Abstract: The environmental benefits of low emission lean burn technology in reducing NOx emissions up to 80% will only be effective when these are deployed to a large range of new aero-engine applications. While integrating methodologies for advanced engine architectures and thermodynamic cycles. It will support European engine manufacturers to pick up and keep pace with the US competitors, being already able to exploit their new low emission combustion technology to various engine applications with short turn-around times. Key element of the project will be the development and validation of design methods for low emission combustors to reduce NOx and CO emissions by an optimization of the combustor aero-design process. Preliminary combustor design tools will be coupled with advanced parametrisation and automation tools. Improved heat transfer and NOx models will increase the accuracy of the numerical prediction. The contribution of our team is to create with AeroSol a direct numerical simulations (DNS) database relevant to the configuration of film cooling for subsequent improvement of RANS based simulations of isothermal and non isothermal wall flows with discrete mass transfer.

• This program ended in May 2016 and the two final deliverables due by the team and devoted to the DNS of isothermal and non isothermal single jets in crossflow with and without gyration were issued in April and May 2016.

• Topic: MG-1.2-2015 - Enhancing resource efficiency of aviation

• Project acronym: SOPRANO

• Project title: Soot Processes and Radiation in Aeronautical inNOvative combustors

• Duration: 01/09/2016 - 31/08/2020

• Coordinator: SAFRAN

• Other partners:

  • France: CNRS, CERFACS, INSA Rouen, SAFRAN SA, Snecma SAS, Turbomeca SA.

  • Germany: DLR, GE-DE Gmbh, KIT, MTU, RRD,

  • Italy: GE AVIO SRL, University of Florence

  • United Kingdom: Rolls Royce PLC, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medecine, Loughborough University.

• Abstract: For decades, most of the aviation research activities have been focused on the reduction of noise and NOx and CO2 emissions. However, emissions from aircraft gas turbine engines of non-volatile PM, consisting primarily of soot particles, are of international concern today. Despite the lack of knowledge toward soot formation processes and characterization in terms of mass and size, engine manufacturers have now to deal with both gas and particles emissions. Furthermore, heat transfer understanding, that is also influenced by soot radiation, is an important matter for the improvement of the combustor’s durability, as the key point when dealing with low-emissions combustor architectures is to adjust the air flow split between the injection system and the combustor’s walls. The SOPRANO initiative consequently aims at providing new elements of knowledge, analysis and improved design tools, opening the way to: • Alternative designs of combustion systems for future aircrafts that will enter into service after 2025 capable of simultaneously reducing gaseous pollutants and particles, • Improved liner lifetime assessment methods. Therefore, the SOPRANO project will deliver more accurate experimental and numerical methodologies for predicting the soot emissions in academic or semi-technical combustion systems. This will contribute to enhance the comprehension of soot particles formation and their impact on heat transfer through radiation. In parallel, the durability of cooling liner materials, related to the walls air flow rate, will be addressed by heat transfer measurements and predictions. Finally, the expected contribution of SOPRANO is to apply these developments in order to determine the main promising concepts, in the framework of current low-NOx technologies, able to control the emitted soot particles in terms of mass and size over a large range of operating conditions without compromising combustor’s liner durability and performance toward NOx emissions.

• In the SOPRANO project, our objective is to complement the experimental (ONERA) and LES (CERFACS) work by RANS computations of multiperforated plates, in order to build a database making possible a parametric study of mass, momentum and heat transfer through the plate and the development of multi-parameter-dependent equivalent boundary conditions.