Multi-phase, trans/supercritical and non-Newtonian fluid flows with heat and mass transfer are critical in enhancing the performance of energy production, propulsion and biomedical systems. Examples include: hydraulic turbomachines, ship propellers, CO2-neutral e-fuels and e-motor cooling systems, particle-laden flows in inhalers and focused ultrasounds for drug delivery. What all these cases have in common is the high level of complexity which makes Direct Numerical Simulations impossible. State-of-the-art LES simulations rely on simplified assumptions but do not have yet the desired accuracy, while often require enormously expensive CPU resources. The aim of SCALE is to develop simulation methods and reduced-order models using physics-informed and data-driven Machine Learning and optimisation methods for such flow processes. These will be trained against ‘ground-truth’ databases that will be generated for the first time using both DNS and experimentally validated, industry-relevant LES and multi-fidelity RANS simulations. The new simulation tools will be applied for the first time to industrial problems and their ability to accelerate design times and improve accuracy will be jointly pursued and evaluated with the non-academic partners of SCALE. These are international corporations and market leaders in the aforementioned areas. Holistic training by experts from science and industry includes broad reviews on relevant scientific topics, modern high performance computing architectures suitable for performing such simulations, big data analytics as well as extensive support for mastering scientific tasks and transferring the knowledge acquired to industrial practice. SCALE will also deliver soft skills training from a well-connected cohort of leaders with the ability to communicate across disciplines and within the general public. This coupling of research with industry makes SCALE a truly outstanding network for doctoral candidates to start their career.

Worldwide, over 1 million people die each year in road accidents and millions more suffer from injuries. Mandatory Passive Safety Systems (PSS) e.g. in case of a crash, trigger passive safety functions such as airbags and seat belts to reduce the number of fatalities and heavy injuries. However, these PSS follow a ”few-sizes-fit-all” approach (optimized to an “average person” – 175cm, 78kg and male) and thus today, especially for women, children, elderly and people deviating from the average, this leads to significantly higher risks, e.g. any seatbelt-wearing female occupant is 73% more likely to suffer from serious injuries than seatbelt-wearing male occupants (Univ. Virginia). Our project combining R&D and market expertise of 2 industries (airbag and testing systems) and 1 SME partner (computer vision-based software) will disrupt the existing PSS market by introducing a novel highly PERSONALIZED PROTECTION. For the first time, touchless 3D imaging sensors are used to derive precise and real-time information about each occupant - body physique, position and pose, weight and sex - in order to control the PSS mechanisms tailored to each individual occupant. This optimizes the protective function while simultaneously also mitigating the risks of doing unnecessary harm which today also can occur. During this project we will develop our system up to TRL8, standardize & prepare its components for the market needs and implement quality assurance processes required by the automotive industry. Also, a first pilot project with a car manufacturer shall be conducted to allow a short time-to-market across the EU and worldwide on the long run. Our impact targets: saving more than 11.000 lives and preventing over 600.000 injuries between 2025 and 2035. Our innovation strategy: What the system will provide in nowadays cars will also be highly relevant when passengers will be able to move much more freely throughout the interior of a car – in the era of autonomous vehicles.

EU transport and power generation accounts approximately each for one-third of all CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion. While current decarbonisation measures are focused principally on two alternatives: electrification and fuel switching, these are not suitable for the harder-to-abate sectors, such as heavy-duty road transport or decentralised energy production due to payload, autonomy and/or fuel supply requisites, among other issues. In fact, these sectors still rely on fossil fuels for 94% of its energy needs, constituting one of the main challenges to comply with the objectives of the Paris Agreement. These sectors require a system that allows to exploit the advantages of the use of liquid fuels, as are high energy density, fast refilling and easy transport, but bypassing the efficiency limitations and eliminating CO2 emissions. In addition, to tackle the alarming increase of GHG emissions and the rise of global temperature, it is necessary to deploy an effective solution in the short-medium term. Therefore, it is key not to depend on the construction of new infrastructures and be able to use the existing ones for the transport, storage and supply of liquid fuels. The main objective of ALL-IN Zero is to develop a multi-fuel system to generate electrical and mechanical power with zero emissions. This system will feed low, zero or carbon carbon-negative fuels like ammonia, natural gas, biogas or alcohols, into a Compact Membrane Reactor producing a common intermediate temporary energy vector to be consumed in situ by power generation systems such as internal combustion engines and fuel cells. ALL-IN Zero will accelerate decarbonisation earlier than other technologies, using available productive and supply chains, SoA technologies, and upstream and downstream treatments for mobile and stationary solutions.

The COMPASS project is a collaborative effort of AVL, Plansee, Nissan and Research Center Jülich to develop advanced SOFC APU systems for range extender applications in passenger cars. The consortium is perfectly integrated from powder-, cell-, stack-, APU system technology providers to vehicle manufacturer and an academic partner. The project will use innovative metal supports SOFC stack technology, which enables key features like rapid start up and mechanic robustness for this application. Within the project advanced APU systems will be developed with electrical efficiency above 50%, a start up time below 15min and a small packaging size suitable for integration into battery electrical vehicles. Under the lead of NISSAN also a prototype vehicle will be build up, where an APU system will be completely integrated into the electrical powertrain. A major focus of the project is technology validation and systematic durability/reliability development. Therefore in a specific workpackage all validation activities are concentrated. The validation testing includes tests on stack, APU system and vehicle level. The APU system will furthermore undergo automotive testing like vibration, altitude, climate chamber and salt spray. In an additional dedicated workpackage manufacturing cost and business case analyses will be performed. These analyses will help to reduce the technology cost by design-to-cost and design-to-manufacture measures and show the business case of this new powertrain concept compared to other alternative and conventional propulsion concepts. This project is worldwide the first approach to integrate SOFC APU systems into electrical powertrains and will help to significantly improve APU systems also for other applications like heavy duty trucks, marine and leisure/camping.

Electric motors (e-motors) consume more than 40% of electricity produced globally. The EU aims to save ~40Mt of CO2 emissions per year until 2030 by deploying more efficiency e-motors. E-motors are also the driving force behind EVs, currently leading the global efforts for decarbonisation of the transportation sector; their efficiency is crucial in extending EV mileage. Unfortunately, electrification plans for heavy-duty, earth-moving machines and aircrafts (accounting currently ~60% of fossil fuel consumption in transportation) have to overcome, among other limitations, the technological barrier of excess heat generated in the e-motor copper windings during power-demanding operations associated with these sectors. E-COOL promises to address this challenge via the development of a holistic e-motor cooling technology, maximising heat transfer through direct-contact, spray cooling. E-COOL aims to achieve this technological breakthrough at time-scales compatible to those required for industrial innovation to reach the market, by integrating two interdisciplinary activities: (a) development and manufacturing of novel oil-based, dilute polymer mixtures of non-Newtonian nature, which, when employed in spray-cooling thermal management systems, will be a game-changer; (b) implementation of a universal design methodology for spray cooling, optimised with the aid of new Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. Training datasets for the ML tool will be obtained by ‘ground-truth’ experimental and numerical investigations also to be conducted for the first time in E-COOL. The envisioned cooling system aims to provide unprecedented cooling rates at local temperature hot spots, which can contribute to an average 20% increase in e-motor’s efficiency compared to today’s state-of-the-art. This will allow next-generation e-motor utilisation over the whole range of transportation sectors, thus, facilitating significant additional energy and CO2 savings relative to the existing EU plans.