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At least 253 records · Page 14
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2006

Simulations of Sea-Ice Dynamics Using the Material-Point Method

In recent years, the availability of large volumes of recorded ice motion derived from high-resolution SAR data has provided an amazingly detailed look at the deformation of the ice cover. The deformation is dominated by the appearance of linear kinematic features that have been associated with the presence of leads. These remarkable data put us in a position to begin detailed evaluation of current coupled mechanical and thermodynamic models of sea ice. This presentation will describe the material point method (MPM) for solving these model equations. MPM is a numerical method for continuum mechanics that combines the best aspects of Lagrangian and Eulerian discretizations. The material points provide a Lagrangian description of the ice that models convection naturally. Thus, properties such as ice thickness and compactness are computed in a Lagrangian frame and do not suffer from errors associated with Eulerian advection schemes, such as artificial diffusion, dispersion, or oscillations near discontinuities. This desirable property is illustrated by solving transport of ice in uniform, rotational and convergent velocity fields. Moreover, the ice geometry is represented by unconnected material points rather than a grid. This representation facilitates modeling the large deformations observed in the Arctic, as well as localized deformation along leads, and admits a sharp representation of the ice edge. MPM also easily allows the use of any ice constitutive model. The versatility of MPM is demonstrated by using two constitutive models for simulations of wind-driven ice. The first model is a standard viscous-plastic model with two thickness categories. The MPM solution to the viscous-plastic model agrees with previously published results using finite elements. The second model is a new elastic-decohesive model that explicitly represents leads. The model includes a mechanism to initiate leads, and to predict their orientation and width. The elastic-decohesion model can provide similar overall deformation as the viscous-plastic model; however, explicit regions of opening and shear are predicted. Furthermore, the efficiency of MPM with the elastic-decohesive model is competitive with the current best methods for sea ice dynamics. Simulations will also be presented for an area of the Beaufort Sea, where predictions can be validated against satellite observations of the Arctic.

Sulsky, D.↗
NASA NTRS2017

DPW-VI Results Using FUN3D with Focus on k-kL-MEAH2015 (k-kL) Turbulence Model

The Common Research Model wing-body configuration is investigated with the k-kL-MEAH2015 turbulence model implemented in FUN3D. This includes results presented at the Sixth Drag Prediction Workshop and additional results generated after the workshop with a nonlinear Quadratic Constitutive Relation (QCR) variant of the same turbulence model. The workshop provided grids are used, and a uniform grid refinement study is performed at the design condition. A large variation between results with and without a reconstruction limiter is exhibited on "medium" grid sizes, indicating that the medium grid size is too coarse for drawing conclusions in comparison with experiment. This variation is reduced with grid refinement. At a fixed angle of attack near design conditions, the QCR variant yielded decreased lift and drag compared with the linear eddy-viscosity model by an amount that was approximately constant with grid refinement. The k-kL-MEAH2015 turbulence model produced wing root junction flow behavior consistent with wind tunnel observations.

Abdol-Hamid, K. S.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Job Scheduling in a Heterogeneous Grid Environment

Computational grids have the potential for solving large-scale scientific problems using heterogeneous and geographically distributed resources. However, a number of major technical hurdles must be overcome before this potential can be realized. One problem that is critical to effective utilization of computational grids is the efficient scheduling of jobs. This work addresses this problem by describing and evaluating a grid scheduling architecture and three job migration algorithms. The architecture is scalable and does not assume control of local site resources. The job migration policies use the availability and performance of computer systems, the network bandwidth available between systems, and the volume of input and output data associated with each job. An extensive performance comparison is presented using real workloads from leading computational centers. The results, based on several key metrics, demonstrate that the performance of our distributed migration algorithms is significantly greater than that of a local scheduling framework and comparable to a non-scalable global scheduling approach.

Shan, Hong-Zhang↗
NASA NTRS2008

Evaluation of Cloud Physical Properties of ECMWF Analysis and Re-Analysis (ERA-40 and ERA Interim) against CERES Tropical Deep Convective Cloud Object Observations

This study presents an approach that converts the vertical profiles of grid-averaged cloud properties from large-scale models to probability density functions (pdfs) of subgrid-cell cloud physical properties measured at satellite footprints. Cloud physical and radiative properties, rather than just cloud and precipitation occurrences, of assimilated cloud systems by the European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) operational analysis (EOA) and ECMWF Re-Analyses (ERA-40 and ERA Interim) are validated against those obtained from Earth Observing System satellite cloud object data for January-August 1998 and March 2000 periods. These properties include ice water path (IWP), cloud-top height and temperature, cloud optical depth and solar and infrared radiative fluxes. Each cloud object, a contiguous region with similar cloud physical properties, is temporally and spatially matched with EOA and ERA-40 data. Results indicate that most pdfs of EOA and ERA-40 cloud physical and radiative properties agree with those of satellite observations of the tropical deep convective cloud-object type for the January-August 1998 period. There are, however, significant discrepancies in selected ranges of the cloud property pdfs such as the upper range of EOA cloud top height. A major discrepancy is that the dependence of the pdfs on the cloud object size for both EOA and ERA-40 is not as strong as in the observations. Modifications to the cloud parameterization in ECMWF that occurred in October 1999 eliminate the clouds near the tropopause but shift power of the pdf to lower cloud-top heights and greatly reduce the ranges of IWP and cloud optical depth pdfs. These features persist in ERA-40 due to the use of the same cloud parameterizations. The downgrade of data assimilation technique and the lack of snow water content information in ERA-40, not the coarser horizontal grid resolution, are also responsible for the disagreements with observed pdfs of cloud physical properties although the detection rates of cloud object occurrence are improved for small size categories. A possible improvement to the convective parameterization is to introduce a stronger dependence of updraft penetration heights with grid-cell dynamics. These conclusions will be rechecked using the ERA Interim data, due to recent changes in the ECMWF convective parameterization (Bechtold et al. 2004, 2008). Results from the ERA Interim will be presented at the meeting.

Xu, Kuan-Man↗
NASA NTRS2002

Isotopic Effects in Nuclear Fragmentation and GCR Transport Problems

Improving the accuracy of the galactic cosmic ray (GCR) environment and transport models is an important goal in preparing for studies of the projected risks and the efficiency of potential mitigations methods for space exploration. In this paper we consider the effects of the isotopic composition of the primary cosmic rays and the isotopic dependence of nuclear fragmentation cross sections on GCR transport models. Measurements are used to describe the isotopic composition of the GCR including their modulation throughout the solar cycle. The quantum multiple-scattering approach to nuclear fragmentation (QMSFRG) is used as the data base generator in order to accurately describe the odd-even effect in fragment production. Using the Badhwar and O'Neill GCR model, the QMSFRG model and the HZETRN transport code, the effects of the isotopic dependence of the primary GCR composition and on fragment production for transport problems is described for a complete GCR isotopic-grid. The principle finding of this study is that large errors ( 100%) will occur in the mass-flux spectra when comparing the complete isotopic-grid (141 ions) to a reduced isotopic-grid (59 ions), however less significant errors 30%) occur in the elemental-flux spectra. Because the full isotopic-grid is readily handled on small computer work-stations, it is recommended that they be used for future GCR studies.

Cucinotta, Francis A.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Out-of-Core Streamline Visualization on Large Unstructured Meshes

It's advantageous for computational scientists to have the capability to perform interactive visualization on their desktop workstations. For data on large unstructured meshes, this capability is not generally available. In particular, particle tracing on unstructured grids can result in a high percentage of non-contiguous memory accesses and therefore may perform very poorly with virtual memory paging schemes. The alternative of visualizing a lower resolution of the data degrades the original high-resolution calculations. This paper presents an out-of-core approach for interactive streamline construction on large unstructured tetrahedral meshes containing millions of elements. The out-of-core algorithm uses an octree to partition and restructure the raw data into subsets stored into disk files for fast data retrieval. A memory management policy tailored to the streamline calculations is used such that during the streamline construction only a very small amount of data are brought into the main memory on demand. By carefully scheduling computation and data fetching, the overhead of reading data from the disk is significantly reduced and good memory performance results. This out-of-core algorithm makes possible interactive streamline visualization of large unstructured-grid data sets on a single mid-range workstation with relatively low main-memory capacity: 5-20 megabytes. Our test results also show that this approach is much more efficient than relying on virtual memory and operating system's paging algorithms.

Ueng, Shyh-Kuang↗
NASA NTRS1983

Progress on a generalized coordinates tensor product finite element 3DPNS algorithm for subsonic

A generalized coordinates form of the penalty finite element algorithm for the 3-dimensional parabolic Navier-Stokes equations for turbulent subsonic flows was derived. This algorithm formulation requires only three distinct hypermatrices and is applicable using any boundary fitted coordinate transformation procedure. The tensor matrix product approximation to the Jacobian of the Newton linear algebra matrix statement was also derived. Tne Newton algorithm was restructured to replace large sparse matrix solution procedures with grid sweeping using alpha-block tridiagonal matrices, where alpha equals the number of dependent variables. Numerical experiments were conducted and the resultant data gives guidance on potentially preferred tensor product constructions for the penalty finite element 3DPNS algorithm.

Baker, A. J.↗
NASA NTRS1984

First global analysis of SEASAT scatterometer winds and potential for meteorological research

The first global wind fields from SEASAT-A scatterometer (SASS) data were produced. Fifteen days of record are available on tape, with unique wind directions indicated for each observation. The methodology of the production of this data set is described, as well as the testing of its validity. A number of displays of the data, on large and small scales, analyzed and gridded, are provided.

Peteherych, S.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Implicit treatment of the unsteady full potential equation in conservation form

An implicit, conservative treatment for the unsteady full potential equation in two-dimensions is presented. The method employs a local time linearization for density, and introduces flux biasing concepts based on sonic conditions for the generation of artificial viscosity to capture shocks without any overshoots. The boundary condition is treated implicitly using a splitting procedure consistent with the approximate factorization scheme. This allows for extremely large Courant numbers, even for nonorthogonal grid at the body. The method has application not only to unsteady problems, but also to generate the starting blunt body solution for a supersonic full potential marching code. Results are presented for flows over cylinders, spheres and airfoils. Comparisons are made with available Euler and full potential results, and are in excellent agreement.

Shankar, V.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Global digital data sets of soil type, soil texture, surface slope and other properties: Documentation of archived data tape

The file structure and coding of four soils data sets derived from the Zobler (1986) world soil file is described. The data were digitized on a one-degree square grid. They are suitable for large-area studies such as climate research with general circulation models, as well as in forestry, agriculture, soils, and hydrology. The first file is a data set of codes for soil unit, land-ice, or water, for all the one-degree square cells on Earth. The second file is a data set of codes for texture, land-ice, or water, for the same soil units. The third file is a data set of codes for slope, land-ice, or water for the same units. The fourth file is the SOILWRLD data set, containing information on soil properties of land cells of both Matthews' and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) sources. The fourth file reconciles land-classification differences between the two and has missing data filled in.

Staub, B.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Parallel spatial direct numerical simulations on the Intel iPSC/860 hypercube

The implementation and performance of a parallel spatial direct numerical simulation (PSDNS) approach on the Intel iPSC/860 hypercube is documented. The direct numerical simulation approach is used to compute spatially evolving disturbances associated with the laminar-to-turbulent transition in boundary-layer flows. The feasibility of using the PSDNS on the hypercube to perform transition studies is examined. The results indicate that the direct numerical simulation approach can effectively be parallelized on a distributed-memory parallel machine. By increasing the number of processors nearly ideal linear speedups are achieved with nonoptimized routines; slower than linear speedups are achieved with optimized (machine dependent library) routines. This slower than linear speedup results because the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) routine dominates the computational cost and because the routine indicates less than ideal speedups. However with the machine-dependent routines the total computational cost decreases by a factor of 4 to 5 compared with standard FORTRAN routines. The computational cost increases linearly with spanwise wall-normal and streamwise grid refinements. The hypercube with 32 processors was estimated to require approximately twice the amount of Cray supercomputer single processor time to complete a comparable simulation; however it is estimated that a subgrid-scale model which reduces the required number of grid points and becomes a large-eddy simulation (PSLES) would reduce the computational cost and memory requirements by a factor of 10 over the PSDNS. This PSLES implementation would enable transition simulations on the hypercube at a reasonable computational cost.

Joslin, Ronald D.↗
NASA NTRS1993

A detailed model for simulation of catchment scale subsurface hydrologic processes

A catchment scale numerical model is developed based on the three-dimensional transient Richards equation describing fluid flow in variably saturated porous media. The model is designed to take advantage of digital elevation data bases and of information extracted from these data bases by topographic analysis. The practical application of the model is demonstrated in simulations of a small subcatchment of the Konza Prairie reserve near Manhattan, Kansas. In a preliminary investigation of computational issues related to model resolution, we obtain satisfactory numerical results using large aspect ratios, suggesting that horizontal grid dimensions may not be unreasonably constrained by the typically much smaller vertical length scale of a catchment and by vertical discretization requirements. Additional tests are needed to examine the effects of numerical constraints and parameter heterogeneity in determining acceptable grid aspect ratios. In other simulations we attempt to match the observed streamflow response of the catchment, and we point out the small contribution of the streamflow component to the overall water balance of the catchment.

Paniconi, Claudio↗
NASA NTRS2001

NASA Exhibits

A series of NASA presentations for the Supercomputing 2001 conference are summarized. The topics include: (1) Mars Surveyor Landing Sites "Collaboratory"; (2) Parallel and Distributed CFD for Unsteady Flows with Moving Overset Grids; (3) IP Multicast for Seamless Support of Remote Science; (4) Consolidated Supercomputing Management Office; (5) Growler: A Component-Based Framework for Distributed/Collaborative Scientific Visualization and Computational Steering; (6) Data Mining on the Information Power Grid (IPG); (7) Debugging on the IPG; (8) Debakey Heart Assist Device: (9) Unsteady Turbopump for Reusable Launch Vehicle; (10) Exploratory Computing Environments Component Framework; (11) OVERSET Computational Fluid Dynamics Tools; (12) Control and Observation in Distributed Environments; (13) Multi-Level Parallelism Scaling on NASA's Origin 1024 CPU System; (14) Computing, Information, & Communications Technology; (15) NAS Grid Benchmarks; (16) IPG: A Large-Scale Distributed Computing and Data Management System; and (17) ILab: Parameter Study Creation and Submission on the IPG.

Deardorff, Glenn↗
NASA NTRS2006

Domed, 40-cm-Diameter Ion Optics for an Ion Thruster

Improved accelerator and screen grids for an ion accelerator have been designed and tested in a continuing effort to increase the sustainable power and thrust at the high end of the accelerator throttling range. The accelerator and screen grids are undergoing development for intended use as NASA s Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) a spacecraft thruster that would have an input-power throttling range of 1.2 to 6.9 kW. The improved accelerator and screen grids could also be incorporated into ion accelerators used in such industrial processes as ion implantation and ion milling. NEXT is a successor to the NASA Solar Electric Propulsion Technology Application Readiness (NSTAR) thruster - a state-of-the-art ion thruster characterized by, among other things, a beam-extraction diameter of 28 cm, a span-to-gap ratio (defined as this diameter divided by the distance between the grids) of about 430, and a rated peak input power of 2.3 kW. To enable the NEXT thruster to operate at the required higher peak power, the beam-extraction diameter was increased to 40 cm almost doubling the beam-extraction area over that of NSTAR (see figure). The span-to-gap ratio was increased to 600 to enable throttling to the low end of the required input-power range. The geometry of the apertures in the grids was selected on the basis of experience in the use of grids of similar geometry in the NSTAR thruster. Characteristics of the aperture geometry include a high open-area fraction in the screen grid to reduce discharge losses and a low open-area fraction in the accelerator grid to reduce losses of electrically neutral gas atoms or molecules. The NEXT accelerator grid was made thicker than that of the NSTAR to make more material available for erosion, thereby increasing the service life and, hence, the total impulse. The NEXT grids are made of molybdenum, which was chosen because its combination of high strength and low thermal expansion helps to minimize thermally and inertially induced deflections of the grids. A secondary reason for choosing molybdenum is the availability of a large database for this material. To keep development costs low, the NEXT grids have been fabricated by the same techniques used to fabricate the NSTAR grids. In tests, the NEXT ion optics have been found to outperform the NSTAR ion optics, as expected.

Soulas, George C.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Three-Dimensional High-Order Spectral Finite Volume Method for Unstructured Grids

Many areas require a very high-order accurate numerical solution of conservation laws for complex shapes. This paper deals with the extension to three dimensions of the Spectral Finite Volume (SV) method for unstructured grids, which was developed to solve such problems. We first summarize the limitations of traditional methods such as finite-difference, and finite-volume for both structured and unstructured grids. We then describe the basic formulation of the spectral finite volume method. What distinguishes the SV method from conventional high-order finite-volume methods for unstructured triangular or tetrahedral grids is the data reconstruction. Instead of using a large stencil of neighboring cells to perform a high-order reconstruction, the stencil is constructed by partitioning each grid cell, called a spectral volume (SV), into 'structured' sub-cells, called control volumes (CVs). One can show that if all the SV cells are partitioned into polygonal or polyhedral CV sub-cells in a geometrically similar manner, the reconstructions for all the SVs become universal, irrespective of their shapes, sizes, orientations, or locations. It follows that the reconstruction is reduced to a weighted sum of unknowns involving just a few simple adds and multiplies, and those weights are universal and can be pre-determined once for all. The method is thus very efficient, accurate, and yet geometrically flexible. The most critical part of the SV method is the partitioning of the SV into CVs. In this paper we present the partitioning of a tetrahedral SV into polyhedral CVs with one free parameter for polynomial reconstructions up to degree of precision five. (Note that the order of accuracy of the method is one order higher than the reconstruction degree of precision.) The free parameter will be determined by minimizing the Lebesgue constant of the reconstruction matrix or similar criteria to obtain optimized partitions. The details of an efficient, parallelizable code to solve three-dimensional problems for any order of accuracy are then presented. Important aspects of the data structure are discussed. Comparisons with the Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method are made. Numerical examples for wave propagation problems are presented.

Liu, Yen↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

WMLES for the Fifth High-Lift PredictionWorkshop Cases Using FUN3D

This paper presents solution assessments and grid convergence studies for the test cases outlined in the Fifth High-Lift Prediction Workshop (HLPW-5), focusing on the high-lift Common Research Models (CRM-HL). The study utilizes a wall-modeled large-eddy simulation (WMLES) methodology developed in the unstructured-grid, node-centered flow solver FUN3D. The second-order accurate simulations conducted in this study utilize a finite-volume spatial discretization and an implicit temporal scheme. Large-scale turbulent features are resolved away from the wall, with small-scale effects captured by the Vreman subgrid-scale model. An equilibrium wall function uses the first grid point off the wall serving as the critical interface between the wall model and the large-eddy simulation region, thus requiring careful placement in grid design. WMLES solutions are assessed for HLPW-5 cases, including a clean wing-body configuration and geometry-buildup configurations corresponding to the 5.1\% ONERA CRM-HL model. Grid-convergence studies are systematically conducted using uniformly refined grids. Moreover, simulation results and grid sensitivity are presented for the NASA 5.2\% CRM-HL configuration at both moderate and flight-scale Reynolds numbers. Overall, WMLES results are satisfactory and agree well with available experimental data, especially on sufficiently fine grids.

high-lift aerodynamics↗
NASA NTRS2010

Updates to Multi-Dimensional Flux Reconstruction for Hypersonic Simulations on Tetrahedral Grids

The quality of simulated hypersonic stagnation region heating with tetrahedral meshes is investigated by using an updated three-dimensional, upwind reconstruction algorithm for the inviscid flux vector. An earlier implementation of this algorithm provided improved symmetry characteristics on tetrahedral grids compared to conventional reconstruction methods. The original formulation however displayed quantitative differences in heating and shear that were as large as 25% compared to a benchmark, structured-grid solution. The primary cause of this discrepancy is found to be an inherent inconsistency in the formulation of the flux limiter. The inconsistency is removed by employing a Green-Gauss formulation of primitive gradients at nodes to replace the previous Gram-Schmidt algorithm. Current results are now in good agreement with benchmark solutions for two challenge problems: (1) hypersonic flow over a three-dimensional cylindrical section with special attention to the uniformity of the solution in the spanwise direction and (2) hypersonic flow over a three-dimensional sphere. The tetrahedral cells used in the simulation are derived from a structured grid where cell faces are bisected across the diagonal resulting in a consistent pattern of diagonals running in a biased direction across the otherwise symmetric domain. This grid is known to accentuate problems in both shock capturing and stagnation region heating encountered with conventional, quasi-one-dimensional inviscid flux reconstruction algorithms. Therefore the test problems provide a sensitive indicator for algorithmic effects on heating. Additional simulations on a sharp, double cone and the shuttle orbiter are then presented to demonstrate the capabilities of the new algorithm on more geometrically complex flows with tetrahedral grids. These results provide the first indication that pure tetrahedral elements utilizing the updated, three-dimensional, upwind reconstruction algorithm may be used for the simulation of heating and shear in hypersonic flows in upwind, finite volume formulations.

Gnoffo, Peter A.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Regional and Model-Specific Response Types in A Global Gridded Crop Model Ensemble

Crop models are often employed to project crop yields under changing conditions such as global warming and associated management change for adaptation. Multi-model ensembles are promoted to enhance the robustness of projections, but questions remain on what causes often large differences between projections of individual models. Global Gridded Crop Models (GGCMs) are especially exposed to this question when applied for assessing climate change impacts, adaptation, environmental impacts of agricultural production, because their results are used in downstream analyses, such as in integrated assessment or economic modeling for projecting future land-use change. Even though global gridded crop models are often based on detailed field-scale models or have implemented similar modeling principles in other ecosystem models, global-scale models are subject to substantial uncertainties from both model structure and parametrization as well as from calibration and input data quality. AgMIP’s Global Gridded Crop Model Intercomparison (GGCMI) has thus set out to intercompare GGCMs in order to evaluate model performance, describe model uncertainties, identify inconsistencies within the ensemble and underlying reasons, and to ultimately improve models and modeling capacities. In phase 2 of the GGCMI activities, 12 modeling groups followed a modeling protocol that asked for up to 1404 31-year global simulations at 0.5 arc-degree spatial resolution to assess models’ sensitivities to changes in carbon dioxide (C; 4 different levels) temperature (T; 7 different offset levels), water supply (W; 9 levels), and nitrogen (N; 3 levels), the so-called CTWN experiment (Franke et al. 2020; http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-2315-2020). We here present analyses of model response types using impact response surfaces along the C, T, W, and N dimensions, respectively and collectively. Doing so, we can understand differences in simulated responses per driver rather than aggregated changes in yields. We find that models’ sensitivities to the individual driver dimensions are substantially different and often more different across models than across regions. A cluster analysis finds regional and model-specific patterns. There is some agreement across models with respect to the spatial patterns of response types but strong differences in the distribution of response type clusters across models suggests that models need to undergo further scrutiny. We suggest establishing standards in model process evaluation not only against historical dynamics but also against dedicated experiments across the CTWN dimensions.

crop models↗