Todd Lowe: "Disrupting Propulsion Performance Measurement with Filtered Rayleigh Scattering"

Speaker Bio: Prof. Todd Lowe leads a research team focused on experimental aerodynamics and aeroacoustics, often addressing applications on propulsion inlets and exhausts. He is co-investor of 8 US utility patents and has co-authored more than 200 publications in the areas of advanced diagnostics for fluid dynamics, turbulent shear flow and jet noise physics, propulsion and power, and signal processing. He is the Co-Director of the Advanced Propulsion and Power Laboratory and the Director of the Pratt & Whitney Center of Excellence at Virginia Tech. He previously chaired the AIAA Aerodynamic Measurement Technology Technical Committee and is currently the vice chair of the ASME IGTI Aircraft Engine Committee. He is a fellow of ASME and the Royal Aeronautical Society, and an associate fellow of AIAA.

Abstract: This talk will focus on recent work to fundamentally advance filtered Rayleigh Scattering (FRS) for gas turbine propulsion performance measurements. In situ aerodynamics measurements in propulsion engines pose several challenges that make experimental data for these flows scarce. The FRS technique overcomes many of these challenges by being non-intrusive, providing velocity, temperature, and density measurements from gas molecules of the flow. Gas turbine engine applications will be presented including an example of integrating momentum flux to determine gross engine thrust, matching simultaneous load cell measurements within the accuracy of the load cell. Ongoing collaborative work to further extend the approach using physics-informed neural network-based processing will be highlighted. The talk will conclude with discussions of opportunities for further developing the technique and leveraging FRS in harsh applications.