Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “solver”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,639 records · Page 91
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1993

The three-dimensional Multi-Block Advanced Grid Generation System (3DMAGGS)

As the size and complexity of three dimensional volume grids increases, there is a growing need for fast and efficient 3D volumetric elliptic grid solvers. Present day solvers are limited by computational speed and do not have all the capabilities such as interior volume grid clustering control, viscous grid clustering at the wall of a configuration, truncation error limiters, and convergence optimization residing in one code. A new volume grid generator, 3DMAGGS (Three-Dimensional Multi-Block Advanced Grid Generation System), which is based on the 3DGRAPE code, has evolved to meet these needs. This is a manual for the usage of 3DMAGGS and contains five sections, including the motivations and usage, a GRIDGEN interface, a grid quality analysis tool, a sample case for verifying correct operation of the code, and a comparison to both 3DGRAPE and GRIDGEN3D. Since it was derived from 3DGRAPE, this technical memorandum should be used in conjunction with the 3DGRAPE manual (NASA TM-102224).

Alter, Stephen J.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Application of space-marching methods to hypersonic forebody flow fields

The heavy reliance on CFD in the design of hypersonic flight vehicles emphasizes the importance of choosing computationally efficient techniques. As a result, the development and application of space-marching flow solvers for the parabolized Navier-Stokes equations have received considerable attention in the past decade. This paper summarizes a space-marching approach used at NASA Ames Research Center for the analysis of hypersonic vehicle forebodies. Aspects of the simulation process are addressed that contain features unique to space-marching flow solvers, such as grid generation, initial condition specification, and finite-rate chemistry models. For completeness, sections are also included on turbulence modeling and equilibrium air chemistry modeling. The discussion includes an overview of the computational methods utilized as well as a number of relevant results.

Lawrence, Scott L.↗
NASA NTRS1993

PDF approach for compressible turbulent reacting flows

The objective of the present work is to develop a probability density function (pdf) turbulence model for compressible reacting flows for use with a CFD flow solver. The probability density function of the species mass fraction and enthalpy are obtained by solving a pdf evolution equation using a Monte Carlo scheme. The pdf solution procedure is coupled with a compressible CFD flow solver which provides the velocity and pressure fields. A modeled pdf equation for compressible flows, capable of capturing shock waves and suitable to the present coupling scheme, is proposed and tested. Convergence of the combined finite-volume Monte Carlo solution procedure is discussed, and an averaging procedure is developed to provide smooth Monte-Carlo solutions to ensure convergence. Two supersonic diffusion flames are studied using the proposed pdf model and the results are compared with experimental data; marked improvements over CFD solutions without pdf are observed. Preliminary applications of pdf to 3D flows are also reported.

Hsu, A. T.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Two-dimensional CFD modeling of wave rotor flow dynamics

A two-dimensional Navier-Stokes solver developed for detailed study of wave rotor flow dynamics is described. The CFD model is helping characterize important loss mechanisms within the wave rotor. The wave rotor stationary ports and the moving rotor passages are resolved on multiple computational grid blocks. The finite-volume form of the thin-layer Navier-Stokes equations with laminar viscosity are integrated in time using a four-stage Runge-Kutta scheme. The Roe approximate Riemann solution scheme or the computationally less expensive Advection Upstream Splitting Method (AUSM) flux-splitting scheme are used to effect upwind-differencing of the inviscid flux terms, using cell interface primitive variables set by MUSCL-type interpolation. The diffusion terms are central-differenced. The solver is validated using a steady shock/laminar boundary layer interaction problem and an unsteady, inviscid wave rotor passage gradual opening problem. A model inlet port/passage charging problem is simulated and key features of the unsteady wave rotor flow field are identified. Lastly, the medium pressure inlet port and high pressure outlet port portion of the NASA Lewis Research Center experimental divider cycle is simulated and computed results are compared with experimental measurements. The model accurately predicts the wave timing within the rotor passage and the distribution of flow variables in the stationary inlet port region.

Welch, Gerard E.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Three-dimensional unstructured grid Euler computations using a fully-implicit, upwind method

A method has been developed to solve the Euler equations on a three-dimensional unstructured grid composed of tetrahedra. The method uses an upwind flow solver with a linearized, backward-Euler time integration scheme. Each time step results in a sparse linear system of equations which is solved by an iterative, sparse matrix solver. Local-time stepping, switched evolution relaxation (SER), preconditioning and reuse of the Jacobian are employed to accelerate the convergence rate. Implicit boundary conditions were found to be extremely important for fast convergence. Numerical experiments have shown that convergence rates comparable to that of a multigrid, central-difference scheme are achievable on the same mesh. Results are presented for several grids about an ONERA M6 wing.

Whitaker, David L.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Chemical nonequilibrium Navier-Stokes solutions for hypersonic flow over an ablating graphite nosetip

The general boundary conditions including mass and energy balances of chemically equilibrated or nonequilibrated gas adjacent to ablating surfaces have been derived. A computer procedure based on these conditions was developed and interfaced with the Navier-Stokes solver for predictions of the flow field, surface temperature, and surface ablation rates over re-entry space vehicles with ablating Thermal Protection Systems (TPS). The Navier-Stokes solver with general surface thermochemistry boundary conditions can predict more realistic solutions and provide useful information for the design of TPS. A test case with a proposed hypersonic test vehicle configuration and associated free stream conditions was developed. Solutions with various surface boundary conditions were obtained, and the effect of nonequilibrium gas as well as surface chemistry on surface heating and ablation rate were examined. The solutions of the GASP code with complete ablating surface conditions were compared with those of the ASC code. The direction of future work is also discussed.

Chen, Y. K.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Reduction of numerical diffusion in three-dimensional vortical flows using a coupled Eulerian/Lagrangian solution procedure

A new approach based on the coupling of an Eulerian and a Lagrangian solver, aimed at reducing the numerical diffusion errors of standard Eulerian time-marching finite-volume solvers, is presented. The approach is applied to the computation of the secondary flow in two bent pipes and the flow around a 3D wing. Using convective point markers the Lagrangian approach provides a correction of the basic Eulerian solution. The Eulerian flow in turn integrates in time the Lagrangian state-vector. A comparison of coarse and fine grid Eulerian solutions makes it possible to identify numerical diffusion. It is shown that the Eulerian/Lagrangian approach is an effective method for reducing numerical diffusion errors.

Felici, Helene M.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Qualitative model-based diagnostics for rocket systems

A diagnostic software package is currently being developed at NASA LeRC that utilizes qualitative model-based reasoning techniques. These techniques can provide diagnostic information about the operational condition of the modeled rocket engine system or subsystem. The diagnostic package combines a qualitative model solver with a constraint suspension algorithm. The constraint suspension algorithm directs the solver's operation to provide valuable fault isolation information about the modeled system. A qualitative model of the Space Shuttle Main Engine's oxidizer supply components was generated. A diagnostic application based on this qualitative model was constructed to process four test cases: three numerical simulations and one actual test firing. The diagnostic tool's fault isolation output compared favorably with the input fault condition.

Maul, William↗
NASA NTRS1993

Unsteady aerodynamics and flutter based on the potential equation

A time-domain three-dimensional full-potential solver is coupled with a linear structural dynamics model to investigate the unsteady aerodynamics and aeroelasticity of propfans. The solver allows calculations in multiple blade passages with independent blade motions. Aeroelastic calculations are performed in both frequency and time domains. Results are presented for two propfan configurations. Good agreement is seen between the full-potential results and results from linear theory since the flow is subsonic and the thickness of the propfan blades is small; the agreement is not as good for the cases in which the angle of attack is high. Some difficulty is encountered due to wave reflections from outer computational boundaries; however, this does not affect the results in the range of frequencies of interest.

Bakhle, Milind A.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Application specific serial arithmetic arrays

High performance systolic arrays of serial-parallel multiplier elements may be rapidly constructed for specific applications by applying hardware description language techniques to a library of full-custom CMOS building blocks. Single clock pre-charged circuits have been implemented for these arrays at clock rates in excess of 100 Mhz using economical 2-micron (minimum feature size) CMOS processes, which may be quickly configured for a variety of applications. A number of application-specific arrays are presented, including a 2-D convolver for image processing, an integer polynomial solver, and a finite-field polynomial solver.

Winters, K.↗
NASA NTRS1993

New developments in the method of space-time conservation element and solution element: Applications to the Euler and Navier-Stokes equations

A new numerical framework for solving conservation laws is being developed. This new approach differs substantially in both concept and methodology from the well-established methods--i.e., finite difference, finite volume, finite element, and spectral methods. It is conceptually simple and designed to avoid several key limitations to the above traditional methods. An explicit model scheme for solving a simple 1-D unsteady convection-diffusion equation is constructed and used to illuminate major differences between the current method and those mentioned above. Unexpectedly, its amplification factors for the pure convection and pure diffusion cases are identical to those of the Leapfrog and the DuFort-Frankel schemes, respectively. Also, this explicit scheme and its Navier-Stokes extension have the unusual property that their stabilities are limited only by the CFL condition. Moreover, despite the fact that it does not use any flux-limiter or slope-limiter, the Navier-Stokes solver is capable of generating highly accurate shock tube solutions with shock discontinuities being resolved within one mesh interval. An accurate Euler solver also is constructed through another extension. It has many unusual properties, e.g., numerical diffusion at all mesh points can be controlled by a set of local parameters.

Chang, Sin-Chung↗
NASA NTRS1993

Numerical prediction of transition of the F-16 wing at supersonic speeds

A parametric study is being conducted as an effort to numerically predict the extent of natural laminar flow (NLF) on finite swept wings at supersonic speeds. This study is one aspect of a High Speed Research Program (HSRP) to gain an understanding of the technical requirements for high-speed aircraft flight. The parameters that are being addressed in this study are Reynolds number, angle of attack, and leading-edge wing sweep. These parameters were analyzed through the use of an advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) flow solver, specifically the ARC 3-D Compressible Navier-Stokes (CNS) flow solver. From the CNS code, pressure coefficients (Cp) are obtained for the various cases. These Cp's are then used to compute the boundary-layer profiles through the use of the 'Kaups and Cebeci' compressible 2-D boundary layer code. Finally, the boundary-layer parameters are processed into a 3-D compressible boundary layer stability code (COSAL) to predict transition. The parametric study then consisted of four geometries which addressed the effects of sweep, and three angles of attack from zero to ten degrees to yield a total of 12 cases. The above process was substantially automated through a procedure that was developed by the work conducted under this study. This automation procedure then yields a 3-D graphical measure of the extent of laminar flow by predicting the transition location of laminar to turbulent flow.

Cummings, Russell M.↗
NASA NTRS1993

A semi-Lagrangian approach to the shallow water equation

We present a formulation of the shallow water equations that emphasizes the conservation of potential vorticity. A locally conservative semi-Lagrangian time-stepping scheme is developed, which leads to a system of three coupled PDE's to be solved at each time level. We describe a smoothing analysis of these equations, on which an effective multigrid solver is constructed. Some results from applying this solver to the static version of these equations are presented.

Bates, J. R.↗
NASA NTRS1993

A comparative study of computational solutions to flow over a backward-facing step

A comparative study was conducted for computational fluid dynamic solutions to flow over a backward-facing step. This flow is a benchmark problem, with a simple geometry, but involves complicated flow physics such as free shear layers, reattaching flow, recirculation, and high turbulence intensities. Three Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes flow solvers with k-epsilon turbulence models were used, each using a different solution algorithm: finite difference, finite element, and hybrid finite element - finite difference. Comparisons were made with existing experimental data. Results showed that velocity profiles and reattachment lengths were predicted reasonably well by all three methods, while the skin friction coefficients were more difficult to predict accurately. It was noted that, in general, selecting an appropriate solver for each problem to be considered is important.

Mizukami, M.↗
NASA NTRS1993

FAS multigrid calculations of three dimensional flow using non-staggered grids

Grid staggering is a well known remedy for the problem of velocity/pressure coupling in incompressible flow calculations. Numerous inconveniences occur, however, when staggered grids are implemented, particularly when a general-purpose code, capable of handling irregular three-dimensional domains, is sought. In several non-staggered grid numerical procedures proposed in the literature, the velocity/pressure coupling is achieved by either pressure or velocity (momentum) averaging. This approach is not convenient for simultaneous (block) solvers that are preferred when using multigrid methods. A new method is introduced in this paper that is based upon non-staggered grid formulation with a set of virtual cell face velocities used for pressure/velocity coupling. Instead of pressure or velocity averaging, a momentum balance at the cell face is used as a link between the momentum and mass balance constraints. The numerical stencil is limited to 9 nodes (in 2D) or 27 nodes (in 3D), both during the smoothing and inter-grid transfer, which is a convenient feature when a block point solver is applied. The results for a lid-driven cavity and a cube in a lid-driven cavity are presented and compared to staggered grid calculations using the same multigrid algorithm. The method is shown to be stable and produce a smooth (wiggle-free) pressure field.

Matovic, D.↗
NASA NTRS1993

An object-oriented approach for parallel self adaptive mesh refinement on block structured grids

Self-adaptive mesh refinement dynamically matches the computational demands of a solver for partial differential equations to the activity in the application's domain. In this paper we present two C++ class libraries, P++ and AMR++, which significantly simplify the development of sophisticated adaptive mesh refinement codes on (massively) parallel distributed memory architectures. The development is based on our previous research in this area. The C++ class libraries provide abstractions to separate the issues of developing parallel adaptive mesh refinement applications into those of parallelism, abstracted by P++, and adaptive mesh refinement, abstracted by AMR++. P++ is a parallel array class library to permit efficient development of architecture independent codes for structured grid applications, and AMR++ provides support for self-adaptive mesh refinement on block-structured grids of rectangular non-overlapping blocks. Using these libraries, the application programmers' work is greatly simplified to primarily specifying the serial single grid application and obtaining the parallel and self-adaptive mesh refinement code with minimal effort. Initial results for simple singular perturbation problems solved by self-adaptive multilevel techniques (FAC, AFAC), being implemented on the basis of prototypes of the P++/AMR++ environment, are presented. Singular perturbation problems frequently arise in large applications, e.g. in the area of computational fluid dynamics. They usually have solutions with layers which require adaptive mesh refinement and fast basic solvers in order to be resolved efficiently.

Lemke, Max↗
NASA NTRS1994

Two-dimensional CFD modeling of wave rotor flow dynamics

A two-dimensional Navier-Stokes solver developed for detailed study of wave rotor flow dynamics is described. The CFD model is helping characterize important loss mechanisms within the wave rotor. The wave rotor stationary ports and the moving rotor passages are resolved on multiple computational grid blocks. The finite-volume form of the thin-layer Navier-Stokes equations with laminar viscosity are integrated in time using a four-stage Runge-Kutta scheme. Roe's approximate Riemann solution scheme or the computationally less expensive advection upstream splitting method (AUSM) flux-splitting scheme is used to effect upwind-differencing of the inviscid flux terms, using cell interface primitive variables set by MUSCL-type interpolation. The diffusion terms are central-differenced. The solver is validated using a steady shock/laminar boundary layer interaction problem and an unsteady, inviscid wave rotor passage gradual opening problem. A model inlet port/passage charging problem is simulated and key features of the unsteady wave rotor flow field are identified. Lastly, the medium pressure inlet port and high pressure outlet port portion of the NASA Lewis Research Center experimental divider cycle is simulated and computed results are compared with experimental measurements. The model accurately predicts the wave timing within the rotor passages and the distribution of flow variables in the stationary inlet port region.

Welch, Gerard E.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Computational strategies for three-dimensional flow simulations on distributed computer systems

An increasing amount of research activity in computational fluid dynamics has been devoted to the development of efficient algorithms for parallel computing systems. The increasing performance to price ratio of engineering workstations has led to research to development procedures for implementing a parallel computing system composed of distributed workstations. This thesis proposal outlines an ongoing research program to develop efficient strategies for performing three-dimensional flow analysis on distributed computing systems. The PVM parallel programming interface was used to modify an existing three-dimensional flow solver, the TEAM code developed by Lockheed for the Air Force, to function as a parallel flow solver on clusters of workstations. Steady flow solutions were generated for three different wing and body geometries to validate the code and evaluate code performance. The proposed research will extend the parallel code development to determine the most efficient strategies for unsteady flow simulations.

Weed, Richard Allen↗