Shock – Boundary layer interaction and buffet on wings at the edge of the flight envelope

What happens when airplanes fly just below the speed of sound? Why do we have in-flight turbulence? And why is it important to understand the answers to these questions? Find out in our Lighthouse Case about Shock Boundary Layer Interaction and Buffet.

High fidelity aeroelastic simulation of the SFB 401 wing in flight conditions

It’s one thing to understand what’s happening to air flow around an airplane, but quite another to understand what’s happening to the actual airplane. How does the force and pressure of air impact the structure of an airplane wing in flight? How can we make that wing more efficient without risking structural safety? These are the kinds of questions that can be answered using the simulations from our 2nd Lighthouse Case concerning High-Fidelity Aeroelastic Simulation.

Topology optimization of static mixers

Statuc mixers use the internal shape of a pipe to mix fluids without any moving parts. But what is the best shape for mixing fluids? How large should geometric features of the mixer be? How large can they be before losing too much pressure for them to be practical? These are exactly the kinds of questions that might be answered with our 3rd Lighthouse Case about Topology Optimisation.

Localized erosion of an offshore wind-turbine foundation

Off-shore wind turbines represent enormous potential sources of green energy, but their installation can have its own negative environmental impacts. One solution is to use suction to install the turbine foundations. This suction installation process is prone to failure, though, when the suction pressure is undermined, literally, by erosion in the ocean floor. What is the optimum suction for installing the turbines? How does it vary with the composition of the ocean floor? These questions are what we can start answering with the work of our 4th Lighthouse Case that simulates Localised Erosion.

Simulation of Atmospheric Boundary Layer flows

Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) flows govern how wind and moisture move across land, how pollution disperses in our air, and even how clouds impact our access to the sun. Thus, understanding and predicting them is integral to optimising renewable wind and solar energy, urban air quality,weather modeling, and even transportation. Given the scale of the entire atmosphere, running simulations in high enough detail to be accurate continues to chalenge even cutting edge technology. In this Lighthouse Case, we will push the state of the art just a bit further along to improve the simulation accuracy of Atmospheric Boundary Layer Flows.

Merchant ship hull

In contrast to the simulations already being used in aerospace research and development, the marine industry is lagging behind. For airplanes, only one type of fluid (air) needs to be modeled. However, modelling a ship doesn’t just require simulating the flow of water around the hull. It also requires simulating the flow of air around the part of the hull above water and the interaction of the air and water with each other as well as with the ship hull. For this far more complex simulation, our Lighthouse Case will capitalise on newly available hardware and software to perform the first model scale high-fidelity simulations of a Merchant ship Hull.