Introduction to Gas Turbine Cycles
Mr. Ryan Battelle, USAF AFRL/RQT An introduction to aeropropulsion applications of the Brayton cycle. This clinic may be relevant to those with no engineering or thermodynamic background or interest, and the opposite archetype. Topics include: engine and cycle classification, component design drivers, industry trends, universal doom, and current technology foci.

Wargaming
Dr. Ronald Simmons, USAF AFRL/RQTE An introduction to USAF wargaming theory, practice, and use in setting technical investment strategy. Topics include the purpose of wargames, how results support strategy/investment decisions, a review of concept development, and the role of participants. Intended primarily for beginners, this short course provides a foundation for understanding how technical and operational concepts evolve from discovery to demonstration and fielding.

Engine Operability Basics
Ms Amanda Ball, USAF AFLCMC An overview of operability concepts, industry standards, and considerations for gas turbine engine compression components.

Turbine Design to Mitigate Unsteady Forcing
Dr John Clark, USAF AFRL/RQTT The ability to predict accurately the levels of unsteadiness on turbine blades is critical to avoid high-cycle fatigue failures. Further, a demonstrated ability to make accurate predictions leads to the possibility of controlling levels of unsteadiness through aerodynamic design. There are several desiderata to achieve designs that experience reduced forcing functions. First, and quite simply, any such design is by definition grounded in the basic physics of the flow. Second, confidence in the fidelity of the design-level analyses used to predict the relevant flow physics is critical. This in turns means that design analyses are as well validated as possible and that both the viscous and geometric modeling of the turbine is appropriate to the problem. Additionally, it is critical that proper periodicity of the predicted flowfield is achieved during design-level analyses. An ability to judge this is in turn dependent on an understanding of basic concepts in digital signal processing that are also essential to the accurate calculation of unsteady forces on airfoils. Here, a method to assess the convergence of periodic flowfields is presented with reference to an experimental turbine designed at the Air Force Research Laboratory. Then, the physics of the flowfield in this turbine that gives rise to unsteady interactions is discussed with reference to available code-validation data. Finally, several design techniques are considered either to reduce the magnitude or alter the phase of unsteady interactions within the turbine in order to mitigate forcing. These include the shaping of both the rotating and stationary airfoil profiles as well as a novel flow-control method that involves steady blowing from the pressure side of the downstream stationary airfoil row. In addition, the effects of downstream vane asymmetric spacing and vane-to-vane clocking are also assessed. Then, the construction of a turbine wheel to reduce unsteadiness on a target blade through application of Digital Engineering techniques is discussed. Finally, experimental validation of many of these methods to reduce unsteadiness is presented for a full-scale rotating, transonic turbine experiment at AFRL.