Sebastian has recently joined AAPS CDT after working for a year as a technical support engineer for instrumentation company Katronic Technologies. He completed his MSc and BEng courses at Coventry University, both in aerospace engineering, during which he had an opportunity to complete a one-year placement working for Bosch as a sales engineer. His Bachelor thesis dealt with estalbishing Flying Quality assessment for eVTOL aircraft, and his MSc thesis with assessing Inlet Condition generator created by PhD student at Coventry University for Large-Eddy simulation, which required knowledge of CFD, and OpenFOAM software. He is an active member of Royal Aeronautical Society, and is looking into preserving the links with the society as well as establishing more that would benefit IAAPS.
The next generation of aero-engines will be net-zero and compatible with synthetic fuel and hydrogen. This creates a unique problem for the engine designer, as the dimensions of the core architecture will be radically reduced. The resulting reduction in the height of the compressor blades leads to the requirement to control blade tip clearances to significantly tighter tolerances. The blade tip clearance is controlled by the radial growth of the compressor discs, which is strongly affected by the temperature distribution and in turn the heat transfer in rotating cavities. The aircraft operating conditions change for take-off, cruise and landing, and so the prediction of both steady-state and transient heat transfer and disc temperatures is vital if these engines are to operate with future fuels. The aim of this project is therefore to make experimental heat transfer measurements using the Compressor Cavity Rig at the University of Bath, and to use the data generated to validate theoretical models, which in turn will be used in the engine design process.
The direct impact of the work will be to create new thermo-mechanical models at Rolls-Royce. These practical design codes will predict the behaviour of new engine architectures over a range flight cycles, including aborted landing. The models require both empirical data from experiments and information from more theoretical flow physics and fundamental heat transfer. Essential to the success of the impact from the project is the close collaboration between the academic team and engineers at the company. This link is well established and facilitated through the in-kind support offered by Rolls-Royce.
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