Fluid dynamics

Today's European aeronautics industry is facing challenges created by increasing environmental, efficiency and reliability requirements. Transmission and oil systems research forms a significant part of current aero-engine research and is an area in which the University Technology Centre has increasing expertise. Current research is focussed on investigating the complex air/oil flows typical of bearing chambers. The research within this group covers both computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and experimental fluid dynamics.

Current CFD research is directed towards modelling the complex two phase flows in bearing chambers and gears, with a number of postgraduate and postdoctoral programmes investigating various aspects of the flow. Within bearing chambers complex two-phase flow exists, with oil present in the form of jets, film, droplets and mist. In addition rotation of the shafts generates a highly rotating core flow. The commercial CFD codes CFX and Fluent are being used to generate computational models and these are being supplemented by the development of additional modules to extend code capability.

Extensive experimental facilities are being developed to provide experimental data relating to bearing chambers. The data from a range of test rigs will provide information about operating conditions within a bearing chamber and will additionally be used to validate the CFD work. Conventional instrumentation and non-intrusive optical techniques are employed.