HeldenSurface: A CAD Tool to Generate High-Quality Surfaces

One of the primary shortcomings identified during the NASA sponsored CFD Vision 2030 Study conducted during 2012-2014 was that the generation of meshes suitable for CFD simulations constitutes a principal bottleneck in the workflow process as it requires significant human intervention. CAD simplification and cleanup is one of the most user-intensive steps of the CFD mesh generation process and it is also one of the areas with the least amount of research taking place. The successful completion of this Phase I effort results in a validated method (HeldenSurface) for automatically converting arbitrary geometries (such as a cloud of points, "dirty" CAD, or CFD meshes) into a collection of watertight CAD surfaces that are smooth, connected, and split into as few number of surfaces as possible. This represents a critical capability needed to automate the CFD mesh generation process, which is the primary bottleneck in the application of CFD. The development of HeldenSurface would permit the thousands of engineers performing CFD to focus their energies on interpreting results instead of generating meshes.

The successful completion of this Phase I effort results in a validated method (HeldenSurface) for automatically converting arbitrary geometries (such as a cloud of points, "dirty" CAD, or CFD meshes) into a collection of watertight CAD surfaces that are smooth, connected, and split into as few number of surfaces as possible. As described in the technical proposal, this represents a critical capability needed to automate the CFD mesh generation process, which is the primary bottleneck in the application of CFD. The development of HeldenSurface would permit the hundreds NASA's engineers performing CFD to focus their energies on interpreting results instead of generating meshes.

Helden Aerospace has already successfully transitioned its existing HeldenMesh commercial grid generator to companies such as Gulfstream and Boom Technologies. The completion of this Phase I effort would further improve the HeldenMesh grid generation process through nearly complete automation of the process. The development of HeldenSurface will result in a product with strong commercial viability.

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