Your Topic

The dynamic behaviour of modern turbomachinery, such as those used in fuel pumps in the aerospace industry (for example in the Ariane 6 launch vehicle), is largely determined by the dynamic properties of combined axial and radial annular gaps. To date, however, such combined gaps have only been designed separately. For this reason, a framework is to be created at the FST on the basis of various preliminary works, which combines the existing tools at the institute for the calculation of purely axial and purely radial annular gaps into a single calculation tool for the investigation of any combined annular gaps.

Your Task

The aim of the work is to develop a framework for the calculation of the static and dynamic properties of any combination of radial and axial annular gaps. To achieve this goal, two existing time-efficient software packages for the calculation of pure radial and pure axial gaps, the Clearance-Averaged Pressure Model (CAPM) developed at the Chair of Fluid Systems, are to be combined into a single object-oriented framework. In addition to typical step seals and axial balancing devices, the framework should also be able to model arbitrary combinations of axial and radial clearances via user-defined inputs. The work includes the following tasks:

• Familiarisation with the topic and the calculation tools
• Development of a framework for combining the two existing solvers with object-orientated MATLAB programming Implementation of the equations using object-orientated programming
• Calculation of the framework and comparison with existing 3D CFD simulations
• Documentation of the results

Your Benefit

• Close collaboration within the team as well as with other students and the supervisor
• 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!