The EU has agreed provide EUR225,000 to fund the KAFKA project: "Efficient Computational Methods for Active Flow Control Using Adjoint Sensitivities"

Active flow control aims to change the character of the flow by suction, blowing or pulsating jets. Such jets may e.g. be able to replace bulky car spoilers or heavy aircraft flap systems to maintain the flow attached to the surface and hence produce high lift and low drag. Since compact jets can be easily installed and operated, active flow control has huge potential in a wide range of flow applications.
A challenge in designing effective flow control systems is the immense design space, i.e. the huge number of possible jet placements, angles, jet speeds, etc. Numerical optimisation with adjoint methods can handle such large spaces very effectively, but cannot yet handle fully chaotic turbulent flows.

The KAFKA project will develop novel adjoint approaches and extend the group's inhouse adjoint flow solver STAMPS to compute optimal jet designs for the chaotic turbulence that occurs in flows in gas turbines, around vehicles or over aircraft wings at take-off and landing.

Collaborative partners in the project are DLR, Braunschweig, Germany, and CERFACS, Toulouse, France.