New ERC Starting Grant for Aerospace Engineering Research on Turbulence Modelling

The Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) has been awarded a new Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) in its latest call. The prestigious grant will support the MUST project, led by Professor Alberto Vela Martín, which aims to develop a new approach to modelling turbulence and improve the reliability of Large-Eddy Simulations (LES).

A New Approach to Understanding Turbulence

The MUST project (Modelling Uncertainty in Sub-grid Turbulence) addresses one of the most universal and complex phenomena in nature: turbulence. Despite centuries of research and a complete understanding of the mathematical equations that govern fluid motion, reliably predicting turbulent flows remains a major scientific challenge.

Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) has become an essential tool in science and engineering for predicting turbulence. However, its success presents a fundamental paradox: models that are not fully consistent with experimental and theoretical data can nevertheless produce remarkably accurate results. This highlights a significant gap in our understanding of what makes a turbulence model successful.

With this ERC Starting Grant, Professor Alberto Vela Martín and his team at the Department of Aerospace Engineering propose a fundamental shift in how turbulence models are developed, placing uncertainty at the core of the modelling process. The research will develop a new LES framework from first principles, combining the Navier–Stokes equations with a statistical description of unresolved small-scale motions.

Rather than representing turbulence through a single deterministic outcome, the framework will describe an ensemble of physically consistent possibilities. This approach will make it possible to establish the fundamental limits of model predictability and distinguish between the unavoidable uncertainty inherent in turbulence modelling and errors that can be reduced through improved models.

“By uniting physics and statistics, MUST will attempt to establish a new paradigm where success or failure is explained through the physical mechanisms governing the flow of uncertainty and information across scales. Beyond fluid mechanics, this paradigm will impact the modelling of complex systems more broadly, offering a universal framework to predict while embracing uncertainty,” explains Professor Alberto Vela Martín.

Excellence in Aerospace Research

This new ERC Starting Grant reinforces the Department of Aerospace Engineering’s commitment to cutting-edge research and scientific excellence, strengthening its position as a leading centre for research in fluid mechanics, aerodynamics and aerospace engineering.