How the TRANSDIFFUSE Project will Change Sustainable Aviation.

Photo Courtesy: Purdue University.

As the concerns about the increasing carbon footprint of the aviation industry are rising, the development of sustainable aviation methods is going on steadily. The latest innovation in this sector is the TRANSDIFFUSE project. This project aims to use artificial intelligence to develop advanced propulsion systems. 

This project promises a shift toward green and clean aviation methods. This is a combined initiative by the members of two Spanish Institutes, namely Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center-Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS), where these institutes offered numerical modelling expertise and high-fidelity computational capabilities to the project. They were also assisted by members of Purdue University in the United States. This year they were provided with a grant of 10 million Euros by the European Research Council to continue their work. 

TRANSDIFFUSE’s main aim is to develop FluidGPT, an AI model which can assist in the development of sustainable flying devices such as pressurised hydrogen combustion (PGC) engines. These are supposed to be lightweight and compact turbines and are expected to be highly efficient, representing a breakthrough in propulsion systems. 

FluidGPT can address the issue of transonic flows that are created from the combustion chamber, which are unsteady and randomised. FluidGPT can help in controlling these flows and make the engine efficient. 

The model is supposed to work based on the Navier-Stokes equations. These equations dictate how a fluid might behave, this makes the recreation of flow configuration possible, which has not been done so far. If successful, TRANSDIFFUSE will lay the foundations of a hydrogen-based engine which will eliminate the need for fossil-based fuel.