Numerical Algorithms for Steady and Unsteady Multi-Disciplinary Simulation of Flight Vehicles, Phase I

A new multidisciplinary software environment ('MUSE') will be developed for the simulation of flight vehicles, drawing on the results of recent research on very fast algorithms, performed at Stanford University under Professor Antony Jameson's guidance. This new technology will be merged with Intelligent Aerodynamics' finite element methology implemented in the product FASTPLANE. This code, which uses multigrid acceleration techniques and is fully parallelized, can already perform^Msteady-state simulations of complete aircraft in less than 5 minutes on a 16 processor Beowulf cluster. The synergy resulting from the technology transfer will lead to a new level of capability for the simulation of both steady and unsteady flows, thus providing the platform needed to couple additional disciplines into an advanced multidisciplinary tool for aero-structural and thermal analysis. It can also provide the platform for a new generation of design-optimization software using the adjoint methodology developed by Antony Jameson and his collaborators during the last decade. Moreover, with further advances in the performance of computer hardware that can be anticipated, real time simulation of flight vehicles should in the future be feasible with this new software. This would provide a powerful new tool to support flight-testing.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

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