GE Aerospace, in collaboration with Boeing, NASA and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is spearheading a project to integrate an Open Fan engine design with aircraft, advancing the aviation sector's drive for energy-efficient technology. The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded this initiative 840,000 supercomputing hours through its highly competitive INCITE programme, which supports the most computationally intensive research globally.
The Open Fan engine represents a revolutionary design that eliminates the traditional casing, allowing for a larger fan with reduced drag to improve fuel efficiency. Previously, GE Aerospace engineers utilised exascale computing to model the performance and noise levels of Open Fan components. This latest phase will simulate the aerodynamics of an Open Fan engine mounted on an aircraft wing under flight conditions, enabling the optimisation of efficiency, noise reduction and overall performance.
The simulation of a fully integrated engine and aircraft during the design stage would be unfeasible without access to the immense computational power of state-of-the-art supercomputers. The Aurora supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory and the Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory—ranked the world's second and third fastest—will be key to this project, each capable of performing over a quintillion calculations per second.
“Advanced supercomputing capability is a key breakthrough enabling the revolutionary Open Fan engine design. Airplane integration is critical. Today's announcement with Boeing, NASA, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to simulate the latest airplane and engine designs continues a longstanding legacy of world-leading innovation in the aviation industry,” said Arjan Hegeman, General Manager for Future Flight Technology at GE Aerospace.
This work is part of CFM International's “Revolutionary Innovation for Sustainable Engines” (RISE) programme, launched in 2021. The RISE initiative aims to develop advanced engine architectures, including Open Fan, compact core, and hybrid-electric systems, all compatible with 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). The programme targets over 20% improvements in fuel efficiency and significant reductions in CO2 emissions compared to today's most efficient engines, marking a major step forward in sustainable aviation.
