SBIR-STTR Award

Unstructured Mesh Movement and Viscous Mesh Generation for CFD-Based Design Optimization
Award last edited on: 10/12/2005

Sponsored Program
SBIR
Awarding Agency
NASA : DRFC
Total Award Amount
$675,000
Award Phase
2
Solicitation Topic Code
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Principal Investigator
Lawrence W Spradley

Company Information

ResearchSouth Inc (AKA: Research South Inc)

7809 Doubletree Drive
Huntsville, AL 35802
   (256) 603-5596
   lws@hiwaay.net
   www.researchsouthinc.com
Location: Single
Congr. District: 05
County: Madison

Phase I

Contract Number: ----------
Start Date: ----    Completed: ----
Phase I year
2005
Phase I Amount
$75,000
The innovations proposed by ResearchSouth are: 1) a robust method to automatically insert high quality anisotropic prismatic (viscous boundary layer) cells into any existing CFD mesh; and 2) a robust unstructured mesh movement method able to handle isotropic (Euler), anisotropic (viscous), and mixed element grids for CFD applications, particularly, CFD-based design optimization. ResearchSouth is proposing to develop efficient, design-oriented application software that will significantly impact the current practice of computational design and analysis of aerospace vehicles. The most overlooked?and arguably the most enabling?technical aspect associated with the rapidly maturing CFD-based design optimization is mesh movement, especially for high Reynolds number viscous flow applications. CFD analysis based on unstructured grid technology is becoming the preferred approach for flow analysis of geometrically complex configurations. However, in the area of mesh movement and viscous mesh generation, the unstructured grid arena has experienced near paralysis for several years. We are proposing research that will provide robust solutions to both of these challenges and, thus, will provide air vehicle designers access to the full potential of unstructured grid technologies for performing design optimization as well as highly efficient "what-if-and-reanalyze" geometric modifications.

Phase II

Contract Number: ----------
Start Date: ----    Completed: ----
Phase II year
2006
Phase II Amount
$600,000
The innovations proposed are twofold: 1) a robust unstructured mesh movement method able to handle isotropic (Euler), anisotropic (viscous), mixed element (hybrid) and generalized polyhedral unstructured grids for CFD applications, particularly, CFD-based design optimization, and 2) a robust method to automatically insert high quality anisotropic prismatic (viscous boundary layer) cells into any existing CFD mesh. All objectives in Phase I were met and all tasks were completed as proposed. The methods worked very well for both 2D and 3D geometries, for tetrahedral, hexahedral, and general polyhedral element types, and for the simple viscous meshes. In Phase II, we will extend the software into a general purpose package for use by NASA, other Government agencies, and commercial customers. We will implement our 3D viscous mesh generation method including a general solution-adaptive meshing capability. We will develop the software necessary to compute sensitivity derivatives of the mesh operations. Two important software design goals for our final Phase II software are ease-of-use and convenient access to its functionality. We will develop two types of user interfaces: graphical access (for the end-user) and programming access (for integration with flow solvers). We will assemble all of the methods developed in Phase II into a single, coherent, design-oriented, product-version code with extensive focus on incorporating a parallel processing capability into the software. The verification & validation plan will follow the industry-standard approach now used by commercial software houses and will include an extensive set of NASA-relevant test cases. The software will be documented and delivered to NASA. The Phase II software has significant potential for commercialization and sales in the non-Government sector.