Altair and Auburn University collaborate on $1.25 million AFWERX contract to develop Vortex rocket engines

Altair (Nasdaq: ALTR), a global leader in computational intelligence, will work with Auburn University's Samuel Ginn College of Engineering on a $1.25 million AFWERX Phase II STTR contract. The two organizations will develop analytical models for cyclonic flows, construct computational models, and study the stability of various vortex engines to address the challenges faced by public and private flight– and space organizations are facing.

Within the framework of the contract, Altair over the previous role of Research in Flight, which was founded in 2013 and won a series of development contracts and grants over a 10-year period. Altair acquired Research in Flight in April 2024 and its technology is now known as Altair® FlightStream™, part of the Altair® HyperWorks® platform.

“This opportunity continues Altair’s legacy of innovation in the aerospace industry and demonstrates the power of our technology when working closely with a prestigious institution like Auburn University,” said Pietro Cervellera, senior vice president of aerospace and defense, Altair. “FlightStream provides users with unique capabilities and bridges the gap between high-precision CFD simulations and engineering requirements to set industry standards for efficiency, accuracy and speed.”

In the project, the Auburn University team – led by Dr. Joe Majdalani, the university’s Hugh and Loeda Francis Chair of Excellence in the Department of Aerospace Engineering – will use FlightStream to identify optimal conditions within vortex engines. FlightStream will help the team predict cyclonic flow performance and acoustic signatures in a fraction of the time compared to previous methods. These models will allow users to quickly predict the stability of thrust engines earlier in the design cycle under a range of operating conditions.

“This contract allows us to develop next-generation vortex engine solutions and collaborate with Altair, whose decades of experience and technology now include the Research in Flight tool,” said Majdalani. “Previously, each test aimed at studying the capabilities and stability limitations of the vortex engine took about two weeks. With FlightStream, the same predictions take just minutes. It will be exciting to see how these tools will change this industry.”

The contract is awarded by AFWERX. AFWERX is the innovation arm of the U.S. Air Force (DAF) that harnesses American ingenuity from small businesses and startups to address the DAF's most pressing challenges. Since 2019, AFWERX has completed over 6,200 new contracts worth more than $4.7 billion to strengthen the U.S. defense industrial base and drive faster technology transition to operational capability.

To learn more, visit Altair at booth #16 at American Aerospace & Defense Summit in Glendale, Arizona, December 4-5. To learn more about FlightStream, visit https://altair.com/altair-flightstreamTo learn more about AFRL and AFWERX, visit https://afresearchlab.com/ and https://afwerx.com/.