Final Report Summary - INTECOCIS (Introducing Exascale Computing in combustion instabilities Simulations (INTECOCIS))
The INTECOCIS project has allowed to introduce High Performance Computing (HPC) into the simulation of combustion instabilities and perform computations which were still impossible 4 years ago, using the largest massively parallel world computers. The project has shown how to start from the design of a combustion chamber and of its operating conditions (pressure, temperature, flow rates) to predict numerically how flames will behave in this chamber and answer a critical question: will these flames be stable or will they oscillate with time, leading to difficulties. This breakthrough, coordinated by IMFT (CNRS) and CERFACS in Toulouse, has lead to high fidelity predictions of the vibrations which can occur in certain combustion chambers, inducing extreme noise levels, performance decreases and sometimes the destruction of the engines. Understanding and controlling these oscillations is critical for small flames (such as house heating systems) as well as for the most powerful world engines (rockets). INTECOCIS simulation tools were applied for small flames as well as for rocket engines and they were compared to experimental data obtained at IMFT for small systems and in collaboration with other laboratories and companies for large systems (EM2C - Centralesupelec, TU Munich, DLR, ARIANEGROUP, SAFRAN AIRCRAFT ENGINES, SAFRAN HELICOPTER ENGINES). Today, the simulation codes developed within INTECOCIS are used by many laboratories in Europe but are also used to design new combustion chambers in various companies which will fly in the next years for helicopters, aircraft and rockets. The project has also gained a strong academic recognition with 25 A-rank papers in the best journals and 3 invited plenary lectures in the top conferences (American Physical Society, Int. Symp. on Combustion (Combustion Institute)).