Posted on December 17, 2024 by Sean M. Wood
Dr. Kiran Bhaganagar and two students on her team discuss research data
Efficiency is everything in mechanical engineering, according to Dr. Kiran Bhaganagar, Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
She and a team of three students have two years and a $250,000 grant from the Air Force Research Lab to develop a computer model of the most efficient and powerful engine propulsion imagined — a rotating detonation engine (RDE).
“The computational model is very complex and should represent detonation waves, shock waves, and turbulence along with chemistry with high fidelity,” Bhaganagar said. “The model uses physics-based governing equations to represent complex multi-physics in the model. The simulations will be conducted on several hundreds of computing nodes in parallel on a supercomputer for days. This technology has a lot of potential for going into space and for the development of hypersonic aircraft.”
Traditional rockets propel themselves by igniting liquid or solid fuel, while an RDE creates a propulsion wave that circulates through a chamber to propel the craft. This requires strict pressure and temperature control, and there have only been small-scale tests.
“Experiments can only go so far because they are expensive to produce,” Bhaganagar said. “If we are going to set up a facility of the scale necessary to test rockets, we must eliminate a number of the variables. That’s where we come in. We have to develop some very efficient, very accelerated computational tools.”
She is working with students Matthew Holland, Michael Deyo, and Cyrus Bourg. All are either mechanical engineering students, graduate students, or recent graduates returning to pursue their master’s degrees.
Holland is a master’s student in mechanical and aerospace engineering. He said working with aerospace propulsion expands his base of knowledge.
“This is a new frontier for the aerospace industry,” he said. “This project is important for us as we want to build our research capability and push the boundaries of our capabilities. This research is important not just for UTSA but also for the country.”
It’s early days on the project, so Deyo and Holland are reviewing the data from earlier two-dimensional experiments. The computer they will use for their modeling has adaptive resolution, Deyo said. That will be crucial for studying the detonations and efficiencies of the pressure waves. However, working with rockets was something the fourth-year mechanical engineering major with a chemistry minor never predicted.
“What I wanted to do was materials engineering,” Deyo said. “But this was so interesting and multidisciplinary, involving a crazy kind of physics. Seeing how my chemistry and materials engineering experience transfers into rockets and fuels was eye-opening and horizon-broadening. It expanded how far I could see into my future. I never thought I would be working on rocket engines.”
— Sean M. Wood
