Flexcraft Flexible Aircraft

Fri, 29 May 2020 16:03:59 +0100

FLEXCRAFT – Flexible Aircraft – is an aircraft that combines the idea of modularity – allowing a reconfiguration of the cabin for different missions (commercial and recreational, emergency and assistance, among others) with STOL capability – to compete with rotary wing solutions, through short runway operation, improving overall performance.

It is a collaborative project between SETsa, AlmaDesign, Embraer Portugal, INEGI and IST.

I joined this project in its final year, and worked on the construction of a remotely piloted vehicle - a scaled version of what the real FLEXCRAFT would be. This encompassed not only the construction itself, but also the design and fabrication of parts, systems testing (ground vibration tests, inertial characterization, avionics, etc), definition of new approaches for the structure/avionics and a lot of problem solving under many constraints.

Adjoint-based Sensitivity Analysis for Multistage Turbomachinery

Fri, 29 May 2020 14:17:04 +0100

My PhD work was on the subject of adjoint methods for multi-stage turbomachinery CFD sensitivity analysis, where I further developed an existing adjoint solver of a proprietary CFD code for turbomachinery applications by implementing the adjoint counterpart of the mixing-plane interface, making use of automatic differentiation tools. This encompassed analyzing and implementing my routines on a complex piece of software while maintaining its parallelization via MPI. The adjoint solver was used to study the sensitivity of the performance of a stator-rotor stage of a low pressure turbine of a commercial jet engine to inlet and outlet boundary conditions and to the shape of the blades and hub geometry.

academic | Simão Rodrigues

Flexcraft Flexible Aircraft

Adjoint-based Sensitivity Analysis for Multistage Turbomachinery