Finite-Element CFD Analysis for Turbulent and Chemically Reactive Flows around Aerospace Vehicles

This proposal is concerned with the development of a finite rate turbulent combustion algorithm and associated software to simulate the chemistry that occurs in realistic turbulent mixing/reacting flows. A two-tiered approach will be adopted for turbulence modeling, namely a Reynold averaged Navier-Stokes solutions with turbulence modeling, and more importantly a direct numerical simulation that does not require turbulence modeling. A finite element approach will be adopted for modeling and simulation of turbulence and combustion in fluid flow. Phase I effort will demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed techniques for 2-D flow problems. A pilot code incorporating this capability will be generated and integrated with NASA STARS multidisciplinary program. The proposed innovation will provide a more efficient and accurate integrated design of aerodynamics, structures, and control systems for modeling and simulation of advanced aerospace vehicles such as the hypersonic NASP. The pilot code will also be installed on a parallel processing system such as the IBM RS/6000 Model 590 (8 cpu's) machine to demonstrate that, by adopting an optimum combination of efficient software and dedicated low cost commercially available computers, complex practical problems can be solved within.