SDL Fluids

The wide range of competencies regarding CFD applications at TU Darmstadt and RWTH Aachen, e.g., high-order RANS modeling, hybrid and coupled RANS-LES methods, multi-physics coupling, and advanced post-processing methods, supplement each other well, and make the SDL Fluids an ideal framework to advance CFD methods while contributing to the solution of actual engineering challenges.

Current research topics:

• Analysis of turbine rim seal flows:
  During the operation of axial turbines, hot gas from the main annulus flow can enter the wheel space cavity between the rotor and stator disks. Such a hot gas ingress needs decreased the turbine life time and needs to be prevented. In this work, the complex time-dependent turbulent flow field inside the wheel space is analyzed by large-eddy simulations to increase the understanding, which is necessary for the development of high-quality rim seals.

• Thrombosis modeling, for the understanding of pathological blood clotting:
  Thrombus formation in an otherwise healthy vasculature can lead to myocardial infarction and stroke, as well as venous thromboembolic disorders. Therefore, a detailed understanding of this process is fundamental to predicting and managing pathological states. We are developing a numerical model consisting of convection-diffusion-reaction equations coupled with flow equations under realistic blood flow conditions, intending to investigate the formation process for the influence of particular species and to support the development of a ligand.

• Spline-based space-time finite element formulations for fluid-structure interaction problems:
  In certain applications, an accurate geometric representation can be of importance. In this work spline-based geometric descriptions are directly applied within numerical simulations of fluid-structure interaction problems.

Prof. Stefanie Elgeti, deputy institute head at the Chair for Computational Analysis of Technical Systems (CATS) at RWTH Aachen University, and her team are developing numerical methods that can be used to perform calculations on the properties – of aircraft, for example – before a prototype is built.