Background

Renewable sources cover already about 40% of the energy demand in Germany[1], 10% worldwide[2], however it can be expected that combustion-based processes will remain vital for the aviation sector and play a central role for energy production. A solution of the well-known, long-term storage issues, which will become surely more urgent and sensitive with a progressive shutdown of coal power plant and reduction of the usage of nuclear fission, might be sought in power-to-X processes and also in the delocalisation of the energy supply, which however will require more compact plants driven by new cycles (e.g. Allam, ORC). A sensible rise in operating pressures can substantially increase the efficiency of combustion for propulsion and power. Past efforts were especially concentrated in this sense on Diesel injection and ignition for internal combustion engines and although a renewed interest is emerging in combustion at high pressure at a more fundamental level, the understanding of the effects of high to very high pressures, combined also with those of unsteady pressure fluctuations, is still patchy, especially due to a lack of focussed experimental research providing a solid basis for model validation. This is particularly true if also real-gas effects can no longer be neglected or high-speed phenomena occur.

In Summer 2018 discussions were started within the Turbulent Non-premixed Flame Workshop (https://tnfworkshop.org/ ) on the opportunity of bringing the problematics of high-pressure compressible combustion to the attention of the combustion community in a more focussed way and an international workshop on this topic took place on May, 9th, 2019 in Aachen after the 17th International Conference on Numerical combustion (https://ccw19aachen.blogs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/), being intended as the first of a hopefully long and successful series of biennial meetings.

[1] https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/DE/Dossier/erneuerbare-energien.html
[2] http://www.ren21.net/gsr-2018/chapters/chapter_01/chapter_01/, Total Final Energy Consumption

Objectives:

1. Reinforce interest and spread knowledge in Europe and internationally about the topic of high-pressure, compressible combustion
2. Establish a dedicated international network for scientific and technological exchange
3. Establish common validation platforms (virtual experiments through high-fidelity simulations like DNS and well-defined physical experiments)
4. Establish an education network for undergraduate and graduate students as well as industry practitioners in the disciplines pertinent to high-pressure compressible combustion
5. Providing best practices for these topics and possibly organize best practice courses
   

Job announcements:

The Chair of Thermal Turbomachines and Aeroengines of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Ruhr University Bochum, is looking for

1. A research associate (m,f,x) for 3 years with 39,83 hours per week (TV-L E 13):Research Associate (m/f/x) for three years with 39,83 hours per week (TVL E13) – numerical work | Ruhr-Universität Bochum | 1929 (ruhr-uni-bochum.de)

2​.A research associate (m,f,x) for 3 years beginning as soon as possible with 38,83 hours per week (TV-L E 13):Research Associate (m/f/x) for three years with 39,83 hours per week (TVL E13) – numerical work for the EU Project INDIGO | Ruhr-Universität Bochum | 1928 (ruhr-uni-bochum.de)

The project can be viewed under CORDIS at: Integration and Digital Demonstration of Low-emission Aircraft Technologies and Airport Operations | INDIGO Project | Fact Sheet | HORIZON | CORDIS | European Commission (europa.eu)

3.A research associate (m,f,x) for 3years with 39,83 hours per week (TV-L E 13):Research Associate (m/f/x) for three years with 39,83 hours per week (TVL E13) - Inverse aerodynamic design of turbo components for Carnot batteries (by means of physics informed networks enhanced) by generative learning | Ruhr-Universität Bochum | 1924 (ruhr-uni-bochum.de)