The Energy and Safety team is a research group (with approximately sixty members) within the European Centre for Research and Advanced Training in Scientific Computation (Cerfacs).

E&S conducts research on high-fidelity simulation of reactive turbulent flows applied to aeronautical and space engines, transportation, and energy production. To achieve this, the team's expertise covers high-performance computing, numerical schemes, turbulence modeling, turbulent combustion, instabilities, chemistry, and multiphase flows, among other domains. The group's objective is to provide Cerfacs' industrial partners and research laboratories with tools for designing new power-generation technologies while controlling their environmental impacts (emission and dispersion of pollutants) and ensuring safety (risk management and explosions).

This research is addressed through theoretical and numerical modeling across all scales, from engine-level to combustion-chamber scales, using diverse methodological approaches (coupling techniques, physical modeling, data assimilation, uncertainty quantification, machine learning and artificial intelligence, and data processing).

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Airflow simulation around aircrafts, engines, buildings …

The ES team focuses on flow simulation while developing advanced numerical methods applied to planes, rockets, helicopters, car engines, turbines, etc. The ES team is strongly tied to other teams like GLOBC or PAE that also use CFD to forecast climate changes or the environmental impact of aviation: indeed, behind these themes, the equations that govern fluid flows are to be found first.

Calculate this engine before building it !

The ES team develops essential tools in numerous applicative fields with a today well-known leitmotiv in the industrial world: let’s calculate systems (planes, engines) before building them. This allows to reduce the cost of testing by one order of magnitude.  The ES team is at the centre of this research along with its shareholders.

CFD is also a field where High Performance Computing is to be found : CFD simulations rely on fine computational grids with billions of points running on million-core supercomputers. Performing reliable and efficient calculations is another main focus for which Cerfacs is recognized as a key partner. Aerodynamics and optimization. Author: Julien Laurenceau Combustion chambers Power gas turbines. Author(s): P. Schmitt – Credit: CERFACS Aero gas turbines. Y. Sommerer and M. Boileau Turbomachinery CFD-Tandem_T-Heat Transfer Turbomachinery CFD_Turbomachinery Explosions in building Two phase flows: Author(s): J.-M. Senoner and M. Sanjosé – Credit: CERFACS