Kristen Smith
GE Aerospace has signed a new cooperative research and development agreement with the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory to continue work on the Open Fan engine architecture for the aviation industry by developing artificial intelligence-powered computational modeling and simulation capabilities to be run on the Frontier supercomputer.
With access to the supercomputer, complex simulations can be performed to gather significant data and improve the engine’s design and performance digitally before producing a physical product, GE Aerospace said Sunday.
Open Fan is one of the engine architectures the company is developing to make aircraft compatible with 100 percent sustainable aviation fuel.
In partnership with Safran Aircraft Engines, GE Aerospace builds hybrid electric systems to lower fuel consumption and carbon emissions by 20 percent.
“Our expanded research collaboration through a new cooperative agreement with Oak Ridge National Laboratory will accelerate our engine design and testing, building confidence that Open Fan architecture is the most promising engine technology to help the aviation industry meet its net zero ambitions,” said Mohamed Ali, senior vice president of engineering for GE Aerospace.
The collaboration with ORNL builds on a previous partnership that made the company the first industrial user of Frontier.
