CEDRE : Numerical Code Able to Simulate Turbulent Combustion and

Multiphysics Phenomena

Applications

 Subsonic and supersonic combustion chambers.

 Forecast of pollutant and smoke emissions.
 Instabilities of combustion.
 Complete engine multi-physics calculations.
 Development of advanced combustion chamber technologies and the reheating of turbo
engines in complex geometries.
 General modeling and numerical simulation of energetic systems.

Advantages

 CEDRE – Advanced numerical code able to simulate turbulent combustion and multi-physics
phenomena.
 Simulation and development of supersonic combustion chambers.

Testing

 Combustion Chambers
o modeling of reactive processes and associated numerical simulation taking into account
physical phenomena encountered in a combustion chamber; two phase flow, turbulence
combustion interaction, pollutant and smoke emissions (soot and nitrogen oxides) and
impact on radiative heat transfer.

 Virtual testing
o modeling and numerical simulation of complex reactive flow in realistic geometries such
as intakes, nozzles, or turbine blades.

Numerical Modeling and Experimental Investigations of Reactive Multiphase

Flows for Aerospace Engines

 A solution to every requirement:

 Development of SPARTE solver (Lagrangian approach for dispersed phase modelling) in the
frame of CEDRE platform for numerical modeling of sprays and injection system for reduction
of pollutant emissions and combustion instabilities
 SLOSH code for thermal and dynamical behaviour of propellant in tanks

Cedre® is Onera software for the multi-physics simulation of energetics and  propulsion. Cedre
has already been used in for many different configurations, from combustion in engines to
calculations of jets for aeroacoustics. Aerodynamic calculation of thrust reversers (at the rear of
the engine) using the Cedre software, for Snecma and Teuchos, by Andheo and Onera.
These calculations used unstructured hybrid meshes (supplied by Teuchos) of the 8 million
meshes class. They were performed in parallel on 64 processors of the Onera supercomputer.

The feasibility, at industrial level, of this type of calculation has been established. Note that the
post-processing of the Cedre software enables observers to follow the changes in the counter
thrust generated by the reverser and the stresses to which the aircraft  is subject during the
calculation.

Zoom in the Lab

"Two in One" Calculations

Temperature calculation of a turbine blade where the wall and a

cooling channel are taken into account, with coupling of "fluid" and "solid" software (Cedre and
Abaqus resp.). The air deforms the structure of an aircraft, while the aircraft's vibrations
modify the air flow. To take all of these phenomena into consideration, ONERA is
developing models coupling fluid mechanics and solid mechanics.

In numerical simulations of aircraft, fluid mechanics specialists model the motion of air around
the wings or in the engines, and structural mechanics researchers analyze the behaviour of the
mechanical parts. But the air and the aircraft's structure are not unrelated: they interact with one
another. The air flow deforms the wings, causing vibrations, which in turn modify the fluid flow.
The complexity of these phenomena must be taken into consideration in "multi-phy" simulations.

"Unfortunately, there is no universal calculation software”, regrets François-Xavier Roux,

researcher at the ONERA "Modeling and Information Processing" Department (DTIM). "The
fluid and mechanical structure calculations are already complex, and the same language isn't
used in these fields, nor the same meshing (dividing space into small volumes, or elements) and
it would thus be very complicated to create a new calculation code integrating both branches of
physics". It is simpler to link existing software programs. "We do not know how to calculate both
aspects at the same time”, the researcher points out. "That is why we carry out successive
calculations with multiple round trips between the two calculation programs, introducing
structure calculation information into fluid calculation and vice versa". These software
programs operate simultaneously on a network of computers, and thus it is necessary to fine tune
the data exchange between the machines.
Fluid /solid meshing of the geometry of a simplified thruster. The front is on the left and the gas
ejection nozzle is on the right. The fluid /structure coupling allows access to the thruster
distortion, including that of the metallic envelope, as the pressure rises.

Jean-Didier Garaud, PhD from the Solid Mechanics and Damage Mechanisms Department
(DMSE) is interested, for example, in flow issues in the cooling circuit of the Vulcain2 engine of

the Ariane launcher. Diagram of the upper part of the Vulcain nozzle, comprised of 288 tubes
This circuit is made up of hollow tubes with a rectangular
made of Inconel 600, in which hydrogen cools the wall.
cross section, coiled in a spiral around the nozzle wall and through which hydrogen circulates to
cool the walls. Besides the motion of air and mechanical parts, it is necessary to take into
consideration the heat exchanges, which also deform structures. If the deformation is too strong,
the nozzle may break, or prevent the passage of fluids. "We have carried out calculations taking
into consideration the thermal aspects”, says the researcher. "The result is satisfactory: we
correctly reproduce the thermal exchanges, both in the steady and unsteady states (integrating
the changes in time)".

These calculations were carried out in this case by coupling fluid mechanics software developed
by ONERA [Cedre], with a mechanics software [ZebuLoN] designed by ONERA in
collaboration with Ecole des Mines in Paris. They were the subject of a thesis. A second thesis is
underway dealing with the behaviour of the nozzle in the case of large deformations. "This is the
type of service that industrialists expect of ONERA”, says François-Xavier Roux. "It is not just a
case of being a specialist in a field, but also to give a global answer to a question. This is why it
is of interest to be multi-disciplinary".
The two branches of physics – here, the flow of a fluid and the structure deformations, are
separately solved by two different specialized software programs, using the coupling method
called "partition".

2006 Activities - Editorial

Recently, a university colleague spoke of his visit to ONERA long ago, describing how he went
from one office to another and noticed each time an engineer writing code – his own code. He
used this example to illustrate - and rightly so - that experiment is an irreplaceable asset at Onera.
What he forgot to mention is that, at the time, this was a general phenomenon. We were still in
the phase where we were infatuated with a new tool: scientific computation.

Then came the streamlining phase that Onera was unable to avoid and that led to an approach
centered on several large platforms: elsA for aerodynamics, Cedre for energetics and Pame for
electromagnetism. Today, the laws of physics dictate (and this is normal) that the trend lean
towards multi-scale modeling. System requirements dictate that the trend lean towards «multi-
physics». And Industry, faced with strong competition forcing it to reduce costs while improving
performance, dictates that the trend lean towards optimization, preferably multidisciplinary.
Multiple codes have completed their mutation into «multicodes»; the phase of uncontrollable
expansion has given way to one of reasonable growth.

And Onera not only did not escape the rule but has anticipated the situation: for several years
federative research programs have been dedicated to multi-scale modeling (multi-scale
mechanics of composites projects) to coupling (Code Coupling, Cocomat , Mogadir) and to
single or multidisciplinary optimization (Avisac, Doom, Centor).

Numerous tools are now available and used:

fluid/structure coupling with elsA (aerodynamics)/ AEL (aeroelastic module), fluid/thermal

coupling with Cedre/Abaqus, fluid/solid mechanics coupling and soon fluid/thermo-
mechanical coupling with Cedre/ZéBuLoN, not to mention multi-physical and multi-scale
tools such as aero-acoustic and aero-thermo-chemical codes.