Visualization Tool for Animating Combined Multibody Dynamics and Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulations

The objective of the proposed work is to develop a tool for real-time interactive visualization of the results of combined CFD and multibody dynamics simulations of tanker vehicles and sloshing liquid payloads. The tool can be used for the following: 1) visualization of an animation of: liquid surface, iso-surfaces, vehicle, terrain and surroundings; 2) making any part of the model semi-transparent so that obstructed parts are visible; 3) coloring/contouring the surface of the tank, an iso-surface, a cutting plane, or any other surface in the fluid domain using a scalar response quantity, 4) placing animated arrows on a surface or volume in the fluid domain, 5) visualization of volume and surface-restricted streak-lines, path-lines, and time-lines, and 6) flow feature extraction including visualization of vortex cores and separation/attachment lines. The user will be able to view the animation from a ground viewpoint or a viewpoint attached to the vehicle. The simulation can be viewed on multi-screen immersive stereoscopic displays. The tool will run on Windows, Unix, and Linux platforms. Finally, the tool will include a hierarchical clickable list of natural-language commands, the ability to process the user's natural-language speech, and multimedia-enhanced step-by-step guiding for inexperienced users.