PCA Engineers has been selected as a key participant in DIDACTiC, a three-year programme, funded by the DTI, for the advancement of the application of CFD in thermal analysis in turbomachinery design. DIDACTiC is part of CFMS, a much larger programme whose objective is to increase power for fluid dynamic simulation - used in the design of aircraft, ships, and cars - by up to a million times by 2012.
CFMS is a new consortium. Airbus are the lead organisation, though Rolls-Royce is marginally the largest contributor. DTI has just agreed to fund the first CFMS programme, worth around £18m. This CFMS Core Programme comprises twelve Application Driver Projects, of which DIDACTiC is one.
DIDACTiC is a three-year programme, led by Rolls-Royce. Collaborators are Atkins, Surrey University and PCA Engineers. Its subject area is the application of CFD in thermal analysis, with particular emphasis on the upstream links to solid model parametric geometry and the downstream links to the Finite Element structural modelling of turbine disc temperatures and hence thermal expansions and tip clearances.
The main objective of DIDACTiC is to speed up the process of using CFD in thermal analysis, to the point where its turn-round time is fast enough to influence the choice of air system features and to include the tip clearance consequences in the decision process.
PCA's long experience in the CFD modelling of complex and arbitrary flow passages in turbomachines will make an invaluable contribution to the programme.