Story ID: 438
Supercomputer Helps GE Aerospace Evaluate Open-fan Engine
By: Chad Trautvetter
Caption: GE Aviation is using the Frontier supercomputer to evaluate fluid dynamics of open-fan engines.
Word Count: 383
When it comes to exploring whether open-fan engine technology can deliver a giant leap in aircraft fuel efficiency, GE Aerospace is crunching the numbers. For the effort, the company became the first business to use the U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Frontier supercomputer, the world’s fastest such machine. 
To model open-fan engine performance and noise levels, GE Aerospace created software capable of operating on Frontier. By coupling its computational fluid dynamics software with the supercomputer that can process more than a quintillion calculations per second, GE managed to simulate air movement of a full-scale open-fan design in minute detail.
“Developing game-changing aircraft engines requires game-changing technical capabilities. With supercomputing, GE Aerospace engineers are redefining the future of flight and solving problems that would have previously been impossible,” said GE Aerospace v-p and general manager of engineering Mohamed Ali. “Together with the U.S. Department of Energy and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, we are showing supercomputing to be a revolutionary tool for designing aircraft engines for a once-in-a-generation step change in improved fuel efficiency—critical for helping the aviation industry toward its target of net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050."
In 2021, GE Aerospace and Safran Aircraft Engines unveiled the CFM Revolutionary Innovation for Sustainable Engines (RISE) program. RISE includes the development of advanced engine architectures such as the open fan along with advanced thermal management, combustion, and hybrid-electric technology. Under RISE, the companies aim to develop technologies that enable a future engine to achieve at least 20 percent lower fuel consumption and CO2 emissions compared with the most efficient engines available today.  
CFM International continues to develop open-fan engine architecture, while GE Aerospace’s use of supercomputers and software tools helps engineers understand open-fan aerodynamic and acoustic physics. According to GE, Frontier unlocks the ability to better evaluate emerging engine technologies at scale in the design phase, allowing it to improve test hardware designs and better optimize engine performance and airframe integration.
The RISE program remains on schedule for ground and flight tests in the middle of this decade to demonstrate technologies for use in future commercial aircraft engines that could enter service in about 10 years.