SBIR-STTR Award

Although numerical analysis applications have proven to be effective and reasonably accurate, the effort required to develop the associated analysis models remains a challenging and time consuming task. While many meshing tools are currently available, decomposing and manipulating the design geometry and enhancing the topology for mesh construction are manual processes and place the heaviest demands on time in the analysis process. The need to generate these models for different disciplines, each requiring different modeling abstraction and fidelity levels, further restricts the ability to use these analyses in the design process. Coupling these models across disciplines presents additional challenges since they often have different levels of abstraction and may not share the same geometry. This proposal focuses on the development of an environment for multidisciplinary analysis modeling and mesh generation. It employs an underlying object-oriented architecture with a common mesh infrastructure that facilitates rapid development of analysis model geometry. It integrates geometric reasoning, feature suppression, and dimension reduction methods to support automating the construction of analysis model geometry topology for mesh generation. Structured and unstructured meshes (1D/2D/3D) representing various levels of modeling fidelity for conceptual, preliminary, and detailed analyses and for different physical domains are supported. It enables the coupling of analysis models and design geometry and supports data interoperability among different analyses. The framework facilitates rapid development and automation of analysis modeling processes, facilitating rapid simulation for design validation and optimization of product performance at the earliest stage of the engineering process

Benefit:
Substantial benefits would result for the DoD and DoE as a result of the development and utilization of the proposed environment for modeling and simulation. The Phase II development will lead to an overall modeling and simulation framework with a computing architecture that integrates and automates the analysis models of full ships for high fidelity multiphysics simulation. The proposed environment for the automation of the full ship analysis models will enable the performance of virtual survivability test through simulation at the earliest stage of the design cycle. The use of high fidelity analyses methods will reduce the effort and cost required for testing and certification of new naval systems.and will assist in correcting the deficiencies in the design before proceeding in low rate initial production and costly Full Ship Shock Trial (FSST). The framework supports the ONR initiative for using Modeling and Simulation as an alternative to FSST. TechnoSoft has successfully deployed the proposed technology in the aerospace industry which resulted in more than ninety percent reduction in engineering cost and time. Based on documented data from aerospace customers it is projected that the adoption and deployment of this modeling framework will offer at least one fold reduction in analysis model development time when starting a design from scratch, and more than a ten fold reduction when starting from a previous design where parametric studies are performed and only modest changes are made in the design intent. This rapid design and analysis environment will cut months off of the development schedules, enabling DoD to field superior products in less time, thereby better meeting the current mission requirements and available funding levels. TechnoSoft plans to transition the proposed development into future releases of the AML framework for integrated design and analysis model process automation.

Keywords:
Topology Manipulation for Unstructured and Structured Mesh Generation, Topology Manipulation for Unstructured and Structured Mesh Generation, Common Mesh and Analysis Modeling Infrastructure, Adaptive Modeling Language, Analysis Modeling and Meshing Process Automation, Geometrical Reasoning and Topology Management, FSST alternative, Multiphysics Multifidelity Analyses

The use of monolithic airfoil structures in static and rotating components such as one-piece integrally bladed rotors (IBR's) in military turbine engines has created an increased risk of high cycle fatigue (HCF). The Phase I SBIR studies recently demonstrated plasma sprayed hard coating concepts that show significantly greater damping than has been observed in previous investigations. Polymer-impregnated plasma sprayed coatings exhibited over 6 times the damping of typical plasma sprayed damping coatings at low dynamic strains and close to twice the damping at higher strains. High-cycle fatigue tests showed only a 10% drop in the maximum tolerable load when compared with specimens with no coating. Phase II efforts will investigate the effect of processing parameters on damping and overall mechanical properties. Studies will also include damping, fatigue, erosion, impact investigations and spin-pit testing of coated airfoils. The development of robotic manipulation programs for robotic plasma spraying of complex shaped prototype blades will provide consistent plasma sprayed coatings. A concerted effort to study a large sample of plasma sprayed damping metal and ceramic coatings in conjunction with the investigation of other viscoelastic materials should provide a significant number of candidate coating systems with exceptional damping properties over a wide temperature range.

Keywords:
Plasma Sprayed Coatings, Hard Damping Materials, High Cycle Fatigue, Integral Bladed Rotors