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At least 235 records · Page 13

The interactive role of subsynoptic scale jet sreak and planetary boundary layer adjustments in organizing an apparently isolated convective complex

A mesoscale atmospheric simulation system is described that is being developed in order to improve the simulation of subsynoptic and mesoscale adjustments associated with cyclogenesis, severe storm development, and significant atmospheric transport processes. Present emphasis in model development is in the parameterization of physical processes, time-dependent boundary conditions, sophisticated initialization and analysis procedures, nested grid solutions, and applications software development. Basic characteristics of the system as of March 1982 are listed. In a case study, the Grand Island tornado outbreak of 3 June 1980 is considered in substantial detail. Results of simulations with a mesoscale atmospheric simulation system indicate that over the high plains subtle interactions between existing jet streaks and deep well mixed boundary layers can lead to well organized patterns of mesoscale divergence and pressure falls. The amplitude and positioning of these mesoscale features is a function of the subtle nonlinear interaction between the pre-existing jet-streak and deep well mixed boundary layers. Model results for the case study indicate that the model has the potential for forecasting the precursor mesoscale convective environment.

Kaplan, M. L.↗

Reliability considerations in the placement of control system components

This paper presents a methodology, along with applications to a grid type structure, for incorporating reliability considerations in the decision for actuator placement on large space structures. The method involves the minimization of a criterion that considers mission life and the reliability of the system components. It is assumed that the actuator gains are to be readjusted following failures, but their locations cannot be changed. The goal of the design is to suppress vibrations of the grid and the integral square of the grid modal amplitudes is used as a measure of performance of the control system. When reliability of the actuators is considered, a more pertinent measure is the expected value of the integral; that is, the sum of the squares of the modal amplitudes for each possible failure state considered, multiplied by the probability that the failure state will occur. For a given set of actuator locations, the optimal criterion may be graphed as a function of the ratio of the mean time to failure of the components and the design mission life or reservicing interval. The best location of the actuators is typically different for a short mission life than for a long one.

Montgomery, R. C.↗

A linear aerodynamic analysis for unsteady transonic cascades

A potential flow analysis to predict unsteady airloads produced by the vibrations of turbomachinery blades operating at transonic Mach numbers is presented. The unsteady aerodynamic model includes the effects of blade geometry, finite mean pressure variation across the blade row, high frequency blade motion, and shock motion within the framework of a linearized, frequency domain formulation. The unsteady equations are solved implicit, least squares, finite difference approximation which is applicable on arbitrary grids. A numerical solution for the entire unsteady field is determined by matching a solution determined on a rectilinear type cascade mesh, which covers an extended blade passage region, to a solution determined on a detailed polar type local mesh, which covers and extends well beyond the supersonic region(s) adjacent to a blade surface. Cascades of double circular arc and flat plate blades demonstrate the unsteady analysis, and partially illustrate the effects of blade geometry, inlet Mach number, blade vibration frequency and shock motion on unsteady response.

Verdon, J. M.↗

Bipolar coordinates for computation of transition duct flows

Numerical simulation techniques for flows in jet-engine transition ducts with changing cross sections are developed and demonstrated. The boundary-conforming grids required are generated using bipolar coordinates, and the singularities arising at the no-slip boundaries are treated as described by de Vahl Davis (1979) and Tsai and Levy (1987). Grids for several typical configurations are employed in computations with the three-dimensional laminar/turbulent viscous-flow solver of Levy et al. (1983), and the results are presented graphically. The scheme used to deal with singularities is shown to be robust, suggesting that the bipolar grids may be applicable to Navier-Stokes computations.

Madabhushi, R. K.↗

Some measurements of time and space correlation in wind tunnel

Results are presented of research obtained by means of an apparatus for measurement of time and space correlation and of a spectral analyzer in the study of the longitudinal component of turbulence velocities in a wind tunnel downstream of a grid of meshes. Application to the case of a flat-plate boundary layer is illustrated. These researches were made at the Laboratoire de Mecanique de l'Atmosphere de l'I.M.F.M. for the O.N.E.R.A.

RESEARCH TECHNIQUE, AERODYNAMICS↗

Experience in using SIMD and MIMD parallelism for computational fluid dynamics

One of the key objectives of the Applied Research Branch in the Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation (NAS) Systems Division at NASA Ames Research Center is the accelerated introduction of highly parallel machines into a fully operational environment. In this report we summarize some of the experiences with the parallel testbed machines at the NAS Applied Research Branch. We discuss the performance results obtained from the implementation of two computational fluid dynamics (CFD) applications, an unstructured grid solver and a particle simulation, on the Connection Machine CM-2 and the Intel iPSC/860.

Simon, Horst D.↗

Multilevel methods for elliptic problems on unstructured grids

Multilevel methods on unstructured grids for elliptic problems are reviewed. The advantages of these techniques are the flexible approximation of the boundaries of complicated physical domains and the ability to adapt the grid to the resolution of fine scaled structures. Multilevel methods, which include multigrid methods and domain decomposition methods, depend on the correct splitting of appropriate finite element spaces. The standard splittings used in the structured grid case cannot be directly extended to unstructured grids due to their requirement for a hierarchical grid structure. Issues related to the application of multilevel methods to unstructured grids are discussed, including how the coarse spaces and transfer operators are defined and how different types of boundary conditions are treated. An obvious way to generate a coarse mesh is to regrid the physical domain several times. Several alternatives are proposed and discussed: node nested coarse spaces, agglomerated coarse spaces and algebraically generated coarse spaces.

Chan, Tony F.↗

LSPRAY-V: A Lagrangian Spray Module

LSPRAY-V is a Lagrangian spray solver developed for application with unstructured grids and massively parallel computers. It is mainly designed to predict the flow, thermal and transport properties of a rapidly vaporizing spray encountered over a wide range of operating conditions in modern aircraft engine development. It could easily be coupled with any existing gas-phase flow and/or Monte Carlo Probability Density Function (PDF) solvers. The manual provides the user with an understanding of various models involved in the spray formulation, its code structure and solution algorithm, and various other issues related to parallelization and its coupling with other solvers. With the development of LSPRAY-V, we have advanced the state-of-the-art in spray computations in several important ways.

CFD↗

Implementing Multidisciplinary and Multi-Zonal Applications Using MPI

Multidisciplinary and multi-zonal applications are an important class of applications in the area of Computational Aerosciences. In these codes, two or more distinct parallel programs or copies of a single program are utilized to model a single problem. To support such applications, it is common to use a programming model where a program is divided into several single program multiple data stream (SPMD) applications, each of which solves the equations for a single physical discipline or grid zone. These SPMD applications are then bound together to form a single multidisciplinary or multi-zonal program in which the constituent parts communicate via point-to-point message passing routines. Unfortunately, simple message passing models, like Intel's NX library, only allow point-to-point and global communication within a single system-defined partition. This makes implementation of these applications quite difficult, if not impossible. In this report it is shown that the new Message Passing Interface (MPI) standard is a viable portable library for implementing the message passing portion of multidisciplinary applications. Further, with the extension of a portable loader, fully portable multidisciplinary application programs can be developed. Finally, the performance of MPI is compared to that of some native message passing libraries. This comparison shows that MPI can be implemented to deliver performance commensurate with native message libraries.

Fineberg, Samuel A.↗

MPIRUN: A Portable Loader for Multidisciplinary and Multi-Zonal Applications

Multidisciplinary and multi-zonal applications are an important class of applications in the area of Computational Aerosciences. In these codes, two or more distinct parallel programs or copies of a single program are utilized to model a single problem. To support such applications, it is common to use a programming model where a program is divided into several single program multiple data stream (SPMD) applications, each of which solves the equations for a single physical discipline or grid zone. These SPMD applications are then bound together to form a single multidisciplinary or multi-zonal program in which the constituent parts communicate via point-to-point message passing routines. One method for implementing the message passing portion of these codes is with the new Message Passing Interface (MPI) standard. Unfortunately, this standard only specifies the message passing portion of an application, but does not specify any portable mechanisms for loading an application. MPIRUN was developed to provide a portable means for loading MPI programs, and was specifically targeted at multidisciplinary and multi-zonal applications. Programs using MPIRUN for loading and MPI for message passing are then portable between all machines supported by MPIRUN. MPIRUN is currently implemented for the Intel iPSC/860, TMC CM5, IBM SP-1 and SP-2, Intel Paragon, and workstation clusters. Further, MPIRUN is designed to be simple enough to port easily to any system supporting MPI.

Fineberg, Samuel A.↗

Three-dimensional supersonic vortex breakdown

Three-dimensional supersonic vortex-breakdown problems in bound and unbound domains are solved. The solutions are obtained using the time-accurate integration of the unsteady, compressible, full Navier-Stokes (NS) equations. The computational scheme is an implicit, upwind, flux-difference splitting, finite-volume scheme. Two vortex-breakdown applications are considered in the present paper. The first is for a supersonic swirling jet which is issued from a nozzle into a supersonic uniform flow at a lower Mach number than that of the swirling jet. The second is for a supersonic swirling flow in a configured circular duct. In the first application, an extensive study of the effects of grid fineness, shape and grid-point distribution on the vortex breakdown is presented. Four grids are used in this study and they show a substantial dependence of the breakdown bubble and shock wave on the grid used. In the second application, the bubble-type and helix-type vortex breakdown have been captured.

Kandil, Osama A.↗

A Framework for Control and Observation in Distributed Environments

As organizations begin to deploy large computational grids, it has become apparent that systems for observation and control of the resources, services, and applications that make up such grids are needed. Administrators must observe the operation of resources and services to ensure that they are operating correctly and they must control the resources and services to ensure that their operation meets the needs of users. Further, users need to observe the performance of their applications so that this performance can be improved and control how their applications execute in a dynamic grid environment. In this paper we describe our software framework for control and observation of resources, services, and applications that supports such uses and we provide examples of how our framework can be used.

Smith, Warren↗

A 3-D Nodal-Averaged Gradient Approach for Unstructured-Grid Cell-Centered Finite-Volume Methods for Application to Turbulent Hypersonic Flow

A 2-D nodal weighted least-squares gradient method and a related face-averaged nodal gradient approach that were developed for use with triangular grids are extended to 3-D for use with tetrahedral grids. In addition, a method, developed in 2-D, to stabilize the iterative convergence of these methods on quadrilateral cells is described and extended to 3-D and remedies are investigated to determine the nodal gradient averaging approach most suitable for use with grids made up of hexahedral, prismatic, pyramidal and tetrahedral cells. Moreover, due to an interest in hypersonic flow, a robust multidimensional gradient limiter procedure that is consistent with the stencil used to construct the nodal gradients is described. Finally, we demonstrate that the resulting 3-D methods are sufficiently robust for use in scramjet computations through the solution of three canonical turbulent hypersonic flow problems as well as a physically realistic 3-D scramjet inlet geometry.

Jeffery A White↗

An Execution Service for Grid Computing

This paper describes the design and implementation of the IPG Execution Service that reliably executes complex jobs on a computational grid. Our Execution Service is part of the IPG service architecture whose goal is to support location-independent computing. In such an environment, once n user ports an npplicntion to one or more hardware/software platfrms, the user can describe this environment to the grid the grid can locate instances of this platfrm, configure the platfrm as required for the application, and then execute the application. Our Execution Service runs jobs that set up such environments for applications and executes them. These jobs consist of a set of tasks for executing applications and managing data. The tasks have user-defined starting conditions that allow users to specih complex dependencies including task to execute when tasks fail, afiequent occurrence in a large distributed system, or are cancelled. The execution task provided by our service also configures the application environment exactly as specified by the user and captures the exit code of the application, features that many grid execution services do not support due to dflculties interfacing to local scheduling systems.

Smith, Warren↗

SmaggIce 2D Version 1.8: Software Toolkit Developed for Aerodynamic Simulation Over Iced Airfoils

SmaggIce 2D version 1.8 is a software toolkit developed at the NASA Glenn Research Center that consists of tools for modeling the geometry of and generating the grids for clean and iced airfoils. Plans call for the completed SmaggIce 2D version 2.0 to streamline the entire aerodynamic simulation process--the characterization and modeling of ice shapes, grid generation, and flow simulation--and to be closely coupled with the public-domain application flow solver, WIND. Grid generated using version 1.8, however, can be used by other flow solvers. SmaggIce 2D will help researchers and engineers study the effects of ice accretion on airfoil performance, which is difficult to do with existing software tools because of complex ice shapes. Using SmaggIce 2D, when fully developed, to simulate flow over an iced airfoil will help to reduce the cost of performing flight and wind-tunnel tests for certifying aircraft in natural and simulated icing conditions.

Choo, Yung K.↗

New applications for phosphoric acid fuel cells

New applications for phosphoric acid fuel cells were identified and evaluated. Candidates considered included all possibilities except grid connected electric utility applications, on site total energy systems, industrial cogeneration, opportunistic use of waste hydrogen, space and military applications, and applications smaller than 10 kW. Applications identified were screened, with the most promising subjected to technical and economic evaluation using a fuel cell and conventional power system data base developed in the study. The most promising applications appear to be the underground mine locomotive and the railroad locomotive. Also interesting are power for robotic submersibles and Arctic villages. The mine locomotive is particularly attractive since it is expected that the fuel cell could command a very high price and still be competitive with the conventionally used battery system. The railroad locomotive's attractiveness results from the (smaller) premium price which the fuel cell could command over the conventional diesel electric system based on its superior fuel efficiency, and on the large size of this market and the accompanying opportunities for manufacturing economy.

Stickles, R. P.↗

Application of three-dimensional Bezier patches in grid generation

Bezier and B-spline patches are popular tools in surface modeling. With these methods, a surface is represented by the tensor product of univariate approximations. The extension of this concept to three dimensions is obvious and can be applied to the problem of grid generation. This report will demonstrate how three dimensional patches can be used in solid modeling and in the generation of grids. Examples will be given demonstrating the ability to generate three dimensional grids directly from a wire frame without having to first set up the boundary surfaces. Many geometric grid properties can be imposed by the proper choice of the control net.

Mastin, C. Wayne↗