Current developments in aviation show the increasing importance of the fan as its thrust-generating component and of the entire low-pressure system of the aero engine. This applies all the more to the future, in which the classic engine suspension under the wing will foreseeably reach its limits.
Nevertheless, the gas turbine and thus the compressor will continue to play an important role both in the aero engine and in stationary power supply for a long time to come. In actual designs, but also in newly developed cycle processes for power generation, in energy transport and storage, the compressor in its various designs is an indispensable turbo component. In the future, it will be even more important to design and optimize them precisely for their intended use.
An essential characteristic of the scientific work is the interdisciplinarity and accordingly the strong networking with the other departments of the institute as well as with other DLR institutes. In particular, the DLR Institutes of Structures and Design, Materials Research, Aeroelastics and the Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technology should be mentioned here. The interdisciplinarity is most evident in the design system for turbo components, which has been developed in the department for many years. Core components of this system are the program system TRACE, which is developed by the Numerical Methods Department, and the automatic optimizer AutoOpti. This design system is meanwhile used by other structural units of DLR and according to their specific purposes all users contribute to its further development.
In future research, the expansion of the integration space and the consideration of the interactions between components will play a greater role. For example, a coupled design methodology of the inlet/fan system or the entire bypass system from inlet to nozzle needs to be established.
With the in-house streamline curvature method ACDC, investigations for the stage matching of multi-stage compressors can be carried out at predesign level, new compressor concepts can be quickly evaluated and incorporated into a multifidelity model in further detailing.
In the experimental field, the department is able to develop and assemble complete fan stages as well as test compressors in axial and radial design and to investigate them experimentally using state-of-the-art measurement techniques.
On the following pages, the core competencies of the department - divided into the following working groups - are presented:
Abbildung 1: Fan stage installed in the test section of the M2VP test facility
Abbildung 2: Schlieren image of a transonic compressor cascade recorded at the TGK test facility
Abbildung 3: Four-stage axial compressor with extensive instrumentation in the measuring section of the M2VP test facility
Abbildung 4: Centrifugal compressor impeller resulting from the optimization process