SILOET Project 3 - Integrated Decision: Support Systems

Jet engines are designed using separate computer models for airflow, heat, and structural stress, but these models rarely talk to each other effectively. This project aims to build an "integrated decision support system" that couples these simulations together. Currently, engineers must manually stitch together results from different physics models—computational fluid dynamics for airflow, thermo-mechanical models for heat and stress—a slow, error-prone process that limits how quickly new engine designs can be tested and refined. The gap is that no single system exists to run these multi-physics simulations at variable levels of fidelity, from individual components to whole engines, while efficiently using high-performance and massively parallel computing. If successful, this system could dramatically shorten the time it takes to introduce a new jet engine product—what the industry calls New Product Introduction (NPI) performance. For the public, this means quieter, more fuel-efficient aircraft could reach the market faster. For engineers, it means being able to simulate an entire engine's behaviour before building a single physical prototype, reducing development costs and allowing more radical design innovations to be tested virtually. The work is applied, not fundamental science, with a clear industrial goal.