Your Topic

The dynamic behaviour of modern turbomachinery, such as fuel pumps used in the aerospace industry (e.g. in the Ariane 6 launch vehicle), is largely determined by the dynamic properties of annular gaps. The flow within these gaps is either laminar, transient or turbulent. While the characteristics of these gaps in the asymptotic cases (i.e. purely laminar or purely turbulent flow) are well understood, recent experimental studies reveal a severe lack of understanding of their characteristics within the transition regime. As detection of the flow regime during experiments relies solely on integral values, modern numerical methods such as DNS simulations must be employed to further investigate the observed phenomena, e.g. the decrease in fluid film stiffness.

Your Task

The aim of the Master's thesis is to carry out direct numerical simulations, especially in the transition regime between laminar and turbulent flow for typical annular gaps. Subsequently, targeted simulations will be carried out to determine the static properties of the annular gap flow in the transition region between laminar and turbulent flow. The Master's thesis includes the following tasks:

• familiarization with the topic and setting up the DNS calculations in OpenFOAM
• perform calculations and identify the transition region between laminar and turbulent flow
• compare the numerical results with experimental results from the gap flow test rig @FST
• documentation of the results

Your Benefit

• Close collaboration within the team as well as with other students and the supervisors
• Insight into a fundamental research topic with a variety of technical applications
• Training of soft skills such as: Presentations and the visualization of results.
• In addition, publication of the results in a scientific journal is planned.

The scope of the tasks will be customized. If desired, parts of the work can be done from home.

I look forward to hearing from you by e-mail or in person!