Session: 01-05: Inlets, Nozzles, Mixers and Nacelles I

Submission Number: 176814

Numerical Investigation of an Adaptive Thrust Vectoring Nozzle With Mesh Morphing 

The integration of the engine into the fuselage offers potentials to increase the overall airfract efficiency, but also causes challenges due to direct coupling between the internal flow of the engine with the external fuselage flow. The implementation of thrust vectoring additionally enables the combination of thrust generation and aircraft control while reducing the aircraft wetted area and drag. This study uses numerical simulation with dynamic meshes to study the coupling between the adaption of the nozzle geometry and the corresponding changes to the fluid flow at the adjusted geometry. The implementation of dynamic meshes removes the expensive step of remeshing for each simulated geometry and allows the simulation of several variable geometries in one simulation. Therefore, the simulations can be performed with reduced simulation costs. To achieve smooth mesh morphing during real-time nozzle adpation to a desired angle, mathematical functions are derived, implemented and coupled with the fluid solver. The numerical simulations are compared to numerical simulations with standard mesh generation for each geometry to show the accuracy of the procedure. The simulation with mesh morphing determines a deflection angle dependency between the geometry modification and the resulting flow deflection, which can be used as a measure for the evaluation of the thrust vector efficiency.

Presenting Author: Kai Xin Lum Institute of Aircraft Propulsion Systems

Presenting Author Biography: Kai Xin Lum completed a double-degree program in partnership with the National University of Malaysia and has been based in Germany since 2019 at the University of Duisburg–Essen. After earning her bachelor’s degree, she pursued a master’s degree with a focus on energy engineering and numerical methods. Since April 2025, she has been with the Institute of Aircraft Propulsion Systems at the University of Stuttgart, where she works on thrust-vectoring nozzles. Her research interests also include particle-laden flow and its interaction with turbomachinery blades.

Authors:

Kai Xin Lum Institute of Aircraft Propulsion Systems
Jan Hartmann Institute of Aircraft Propulsion Systems
Stephan Staudacher Institute of Aircraft Propulsion Systems