The Fluid Mechanics Group at University of Zaragoza, together with the associated laboratory for combustion research LITEC, is probably the largest interdisciplinary team in Spain devoted to combustion research, both theoretical and experimental. Operating since the early 80's, the group has extensive experimental facilities, including multi-fuel laboratory-combustors (0.5 and 0.1 Mw), laminar-flow reactors, gas analyzers, sampling and radiation probes, and advanced laser diagnostic equipment (LIF, LDV, PIV, laser difractometer).

In respect of theoretical research, the group has developed and applied models for gas, oil and coal combustion and pollutant formation, and of liquid atomization. Particularly relevant to the present project is the group's involvement, sometimes as project coordinator, in several major European-funded projects, including:

• BRITE-EURAM AERO CT 92 0035 (PDF/CFD-based methods: development and validation for low-emissions combustor technology), Jan 1993 - Dec 1995  (Project Coordinators)

• BRITE-EURAM 95-1927 (Low Emission Systems Simulation Procedures for the Development of Fuel Efficient Combustor Technology), Jan 1996 - Dec 1998 (Project Coordinators)

• ESPRIT 20966, MICA - A model Industrial CFD Application, Jan 1996 - Apr 1998

• ECSC 7220/ED/096, Application of advanced modelling techniques for coal utilization, Jan 1998 – Dec 1999

• ECSC 7220-PR/073, Numerical Investigation of Coal-fired Equipment using Combustion Optimisation ALgorithms (NICE-COAL), Dec 1999 - Nov 2002 (Project Coordinators)

• GRD1-1999-10325, Computational Fluid Dynamics for Combustion (CFD4C), Feb 2000 - Jan 2003

 The ZU group in the present project is the coordinator, and the provider of validation cases for combustion applications on an industrial scale. ZU will liase with a major electric utility in Spain to define an application of industrial interest (viz the simulation of combustion in a power station boiler, with the aim of minimising pollutant formation).

The Chemical Process Engineering Research Institute (CPERI) is one of the Institutes of the Centre for Research and Technology-Hellas (CERTH), a leading research organisation of the greater public sector in Greece, and carries out diverse research projects in close collaboration with European and US Industries in the areas of energy conservation, environmental processes, solid fuels, liquid fuels and hydrocarbons, chemical technology, polymers, membrane processes, electrochemical processes, computer aided design and optimisation and aerosol & particle technology. The Institute is currently employing about 100 employees (with 80% in research), participates in several EU-sponsored projects and offers a range of engineering and analytical services to interested parties. In addition, it is the major shareholder of the Thessaloniki Technology Park, providing R&D support and technology transfer services to SMEs.

Work for the present project will be carried out at the Aerosol & Particle Technology (APT) Laboratory. The responsible person for the project will be the Head of APT Lab, Dr. Athanasios G. Konstandopoulos, who has considerable expertise in the design, simulation, engineering and testing of catalyzed porous supports for emissions control. The APT Laboratory has co-ordinated/participated in a number of projects in many areas relevant to work described in the present proposal:

• Diesel Exhaust Aftertreatment (a cluster of 4 EU projects ART-DEXA, SYLOC-DEXA, PSICO-DEXA and STYFF-DEXA)

• Design, engineering and testing of porous catalyzed supports, filters and membranes 
  e.g. EU projects DIDTREAT, CERFIL, HOTGASYS

• Advanced simulation – CFD and discrete particle dynamics in a parallel environment, e.g. EU project ECSC-ED753)

• Aerosol reaction engineering – nano-particle synthesis, e.g. Hellenic government-sponsored project OPRT- II/127

Furthermore, the Laboratory is very active in numerical simulation of flow and particle dynamics phenomena (computational, discrete particle dynamics, chemical reaction dynamics) and posesses an an array of computing resources which includes a 17-node Beowuf cluster. Therefore, the proposed project offers work content that is within the core competence area of the APT Laboratory and in line with the strategic goal of the Laboratory to become a centre of excellence in advanced particulate control processes.

HSVA - Hamburgische Schiffbau Versuchsanstalt - is Germany’s leading hydrodynamics research and development facility. They are a private self-supporting non-profit organisation. The main task is to advice the maritime industry in all fields of naval hydrodynamics. With its sophisticated experimental research facilities, HSVA has been among the world's leading towing tanks ever since their foundation in 1913. Leading international scientists have contributed pioneering work in naval hydrodynamics. Today, modern and large test facilities including towing tanks, maxi-cavitation tunnels and numerical analysis (CFD) are used to perform basic research as well as provide customer services. Presently HSVA has a staff of 86 employees, mostly engineers and scientists.

Being one of the forerunners in CFD-development and application for marine flow problems, HSVA continues their commitment to develop advanced numerical methods that will help to fulfil our customers needs and help our customers to build better ships. Building on the experiences gained with potential free surface codes and the development and application of RANSE codes to marine flow problems, presently a new generation of codes is being developed at HSVA in order to compute the viscous free surface flow around a ship or floating structure.

In the past, HSVA participated in numerous projects under previous EU frameworks. These encompass previous BRITE/EURAM projects, the MAST project HYTOV and a number of projects in the GROWTH programme, e.g. FANTASTIC, EROCAV, EFFORT and others. Besides, HSVA is also playing an active role in two networks: CEPS and Marnet-CFD.

SKODA VYZKUM s.r.o. was founded as the Central Research Institute of SKODA concern in 1907. Since 1993 has been transformed into independent business unit in the form of a company with limited liability, being a subsidiary of SKODA HOLDING a.s.

SKODA VYZKUM s.r.o. incorporates a number of mutually interconnected theoretical and experimental laboratories with the main activities in research, development and expertise of new materials and technologies, in mechanical and electrical engineering, computer modelling and fluid mechanics (CFD). Presently SKODA VYZKUM has a staff of 135 employees, scientists, engineers and lab technicians. The main target of the institute is to increase the quality and competitiveness of the SKODA Group products. On the other hand, SKODA VYZKUM s.r.o. participates in a number of R&D projects of Grant Agency of Czech Republic, Czech Ministry of Education and Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade. In the past, SKODA VYZKUM participated in international projects under EU frameworks.

Today modern testing and computational technologies (including hot-wire anemometry, wind tunnel with accessories and commercial CFD codes, in-house developed tools to compute flow parameters) are used to perform basic research (statistical properties of turbulent flows of air) and customer services and consultancy.

Today CFD numerical analysis are used to solve the flow through power engineering and transport equipment. Three-dimensional flows through virtual models of real equipment parts are simulated. The results of computer simulation help to our customers - designers optimize the shape of structures and than to increase of efficiency of turbines or to increase of level the passenger-friendly trains.

Symban Power Systems Ltd is a commercial company, founded in 1997. The main activities of the company since its foundation have focused in the areas of distributed computing, and more specifically in the areas of multi-tier applications, using JAVA and other web-based technologies (J2EE, etc.). The company has undertaken projects in the engineering, financial, and e-commerce sectors. Symban is the vendor of the CFD code ALPHA. ALPHA is the only commercial code that has integrated pre-processing, solver, post-processing and visual solution monitoring into one module. Written in C++, it was designed using OO techniques and runs in multiple threads.

The Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum für Informationstechnik Berlin (ZIB) is a non-university research institute of the State of Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 1984 as an institution incorporated under public law. The main emphasis of research and development at ZIB is in the fields of scientific computing and computer science. Theory and algorithm design are combined with practical evaluation of the mathematical models and validation of the implemented software on high-performance systems. ZIB contributes to solving crucial problems in science, technology, environment and society – problems that cannot be solved by traditional methods but are accessible to mathematical analysis. ZIB's part in this effort is to develop innovative algorithms and to use high-performance computers in close cooperation with researchers in science and industry.

In addition to cooperating with various scientific institutes, ZIB presently conducts joint projects in the following fields: telecommunication, medical sciences, public transportation and logistic, the chemical, electrical, computer, and automotive industries, as well as mechanical engineering. These projects are funded by the European Commission, the German Ministry of Education, Research and Science (BMBF), the German Research Agency (DFG), the DFN Verein, the Senate of Berlin, and various industrial partner like E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH, Siemens AG, Berlin-Brandenburgische Verkehrsbetriebe, Analyticon AG, INPRO mbH, etc. In the domain relevant to the FLOWGRID project, ZIB led and participated in several projects, including:

• Unicore (1997-02, partner)
• four DFN Gigabit testbed projects (1998-00, coordinator, partner)
• parallel FEM codes (1999-02, INPRO GmbH Berlin)
• MetaChem (2000- now, founder and national delegate)
• DataGrid (2000-02, associate partner)
• GriKSL (2001-02, partner)
• GridLab (2002-04, partner)

ZIB operates high-performance computers (e.g. a 512-processor Cray T3E, and a large IBM pServer 690 with 2 TeraFlop/s peak performance) as a service to universities and scientific institutes in Berlin and to industrial partners. An independent scientific admission committee decides on the allocation of computing resources to large projects. ZIB also operates a top-level network node of the German Gigabit WAN for the northern part of Germany, and it manages the Berlin metropolitan area network BRAIN with approx. 170 connected institutes.