Improving the Flow

About this technology

Overview

NASA's Glenn Research Center formed an industry-government team with several jet engine companies to develop the National Combustion Code (NCC). The code helps aerospace engineers solve complex aerodynamics and combustion problems in gas turbine, rocket, and hypersonic engines. A Space Act Agreement between Glenn and Flow Parametrics, LLC, enabled the company to commercialize the NCC as the FPVortexT Computational Fluid Dynamics Flow Solver. FPVortex provides design engineers and scientists with a detailed understanding of complex flow fields, leading to design and performance improvements in many types of flow devices. Originally designed to solve the flow fields in gas turbine fuel nozzles, combustors, diffusers, and augmentors, FPVortex can also be applied to a wide range of flow problems, from low-speed laminar flows to hypersonic turbulent flows with chemical reactions. FPVortex has been successfully applied to design problems in the aerospace propulsion, automotive, and land-based power generation industries. In addition to solving complex aerodynamics and combustion problems in engines, FPVortex's applications extend to other market sector areas such as heat exchangers, particle separation machinery, land speed record vehicles, and medical devices. FPVortexT is a trademark of Flow Parametrics, LLC.