CATER Named an Official University Research Center

At the Center for Advanced Turbomachinery and Energy Research (CATER), the mission is simple: CATER to the energy needs of society. For 20 years, researchers affiliated with the center have worked on groundbreaking projects in power generation, space propulsion and aviation that have pushed the boundaries of what's possible in power generation, air travel and spaceflight.

Now CATER is expanding its mission and its reach as it shifts from a center within the College of Engineering and Computer Science to an official university center, effective July 1. This new iteration of CATER includes structured goals for faculty success, advancing new industry and national lab partnerships and the development of new research and testing facilities for students and faculty.

"Florida has an unparallel industrial ecosystem that includes turbomachinery companies, space propulsion companies and aviation companies," Pegasus Professor and Trustee Chair Jayanta Kapat says. "CATER works at the intersection of these technologies and strives to provide the best training to UCF students who will work for these organizations, capable of providing them with fast and quality technical solutions."

Fostering Faculty Mentorship

UCF sets up its faculty for long-term success, in part, through quality mentorship.

As part of Kapat's plan, core senior CATER faculty members will mentor incoming assistant professors who join CATER as core faculty members until they receive promotion and tenure. Throughout the process, junior faculty will receive guidance on the grant funding process and networking as well as student recruitment and advising.

CATER's current interdisciplinary faculty expertise includes mechanical and aerospace engineering, and modeling, simulation and training.

"The typical faculty career is 20 to 30 years, and we want our faculty to stay successful over that period of time," Kapat says. "None of this is taught in a university as a course. So in CATER we have created a very intense one-to-one mentorship plan that worked well in the previous version of CATER so that core members can sustain productivity over their entire faculty careers."

Redefining the Research Focus

To be considered or to remain a core member of CATER, senior faculty will need to continuously meet specific metrics such as annual research expenditures, total annual awards, the number of mentored graduate students, number doctoral graduations, publications, etc.

CATER won't expand beyond 15 core members and 10 research faculty members, while keeping its focus on various research applications, such as hypersonics and national security, energy and sustainability, advanced air mobility, and space power and propulsion.

"These are the areas where we contribute to the university's overall strategic initiatives that President Alexander N. Cartwright implemented as part of UCF's strategic plan," Kapat says. "So this is our contribution to the university's strategic goals."

The faculty are already working on several research projects to support CATER's research pillars, including the development of digital twin architecture for power plants and aviation systems, creating new fuels for zero-emission aviation, use of supercritical carbon dioxide, molten salt and ammonia as energy carriers for future power generation systems, expanding design paradigm using advanced manufacturing and newer materials, and investigating the possibility of building a power plant on the moon.

Expanding Industry Partnerships

CATER also supports industry needs through partnerships with major energy, aerospace and defense organizations that are based in Central Florida, including Pegasus Partner Siemens Energy. For the past decade, CATER's homebase has been the Siemens Energy Center on the main campus. But now researchers have additional facilities that support their work.

CATER and the Aerospace Technology Group (ATG) have collaborated on the CATER-ATG Engine Research Test (CERT) facility, which recently opened at Valkaria Airport near Melbourne, Florida. The space allows CATER researchers to certify engine parts and develop/validate new technologies that companies like Boeing or GE could incorporate into their next generation aviation systems.

Professor Kareem Ahmed, a world expert in hypersonic and space propulsion, is using the space to conduct fuel tests for the Department of Defense. Professor Subith Vasu, a world expert in supercritical carbon dioxide oxy-combustion and ammonia combustion, will conduct engine testing of ammonia as a fuel for an actual aviation gas turbine - one of the first in the world.

Kapat's group is conducting ground testing of hypersonic flight components and will conduct cracking of ammonia using heat from a gas turbine exhaust. Such experiments can't be run on the UCF campus.

A third joint facility called the CATER Applied Propulsion and Energy Center (CAPE), is under development with start of operation expected by August. This would house several mid-TRL experimental rigs on supercritical carbon dioxide cycle, molten salt systems and components, energy storage, advanced air mobility, etc.

CAPE facility will be also strategically located close to the world's largest molten salt energy storage facility, called MOSS, being planned by Siemens Energy and will be used to test components for thermal energy storage systems and thermal interface for advanced nuclear reactors. Siemens Energy would own the MOSS facility while a nuclear reactor company will supply a large fraction of the equipment. UCF researchers will help operate and use the facility to conduct research and train the next generation of nuclear and mechanical engineers.

"We need to train the new workforce because there is not enough people trained in nuclear engineering anymore," Kapat says. "Mechanical engineering is a nuclear-adjacent area, so they see this as an opportunity to train the workforce by letting them run the facility. So it's a win-win for everybody."

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