Engines
Supercomputer Helps GE Aerospace Evaluate Open-fan Engine
GE Aviation is using the Frontier supercomputer to evaluate fluid dynamics of open-fan engines.
CFM Revolutionary Innovation for Sustainable Engines (Rise) program
The CFM Revolutionary Innovation for Sustainable Engines (RISE) program aims to improve fuel efficiency by 20 percent compared with currently available engines. (Photo: CFM International)

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.

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