SPACE MARCHING ALGORITHM ON UNSTRUCTURED GRIDS

RESEARCH ON SPACE MARCHING ALGORITHMS ON UNSTRUCTURED MESHES FOR HIGH SPEED AERODYNAMIC CONFIGURATION DESIGN IS PROPOSED IN RESPONSE TO THE NEED FOR SIGNIFICANT NUMERICAL EFFICIENCY GAINS WITH A MINIMAL LOSS IN GEOMETRIC FLEXIBILITY. CHARACTERISTIC BASED ALGORITHMS FOR THE SOLUTION OF THE EULERS' EQUATIONS OF GAS DYNAMICS ARE PROPOSED FOR COMPUTATION ON GRIDS CONSTRUCTED BY AN ADVANCING FRONT METHOD. A REDUCTION IN CPU EXECUTION TIMES BY AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE OVER EXISTING FINITE ELEMENT AND FINITE VOLUME SPATIAL DISCRETIZATIONS OF THE EQUATIONS OF MOTION ON UNSTRUCTURED GRIDS SHOULD BE OBTAINABLE. IN ADDITION, THE GEOMETRIC MODELING CAPABILITY OF SPACE MARCHING ALGORITHMS CURRENTLY IN USE OF STRUCTURED GRIDS SHOULD BE DRAMATICALLY ENHANCED. COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS INCLUDE THE AERODYNAMIC ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF HYPERSONIC VEHICLES, SUPERSONIC TRANSPORT AIRCRAFT, AND MILITARY FIGHTER CONFIGURATIONS.