PARALLEL FLUENT/RNG: A THREE-DIMENSIONAL FINITE-VOLUME TURBULENT FLOW SIMULATION TOOL

RESEARCHERS ARE DEVELOPING A HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT FOR LARGE-SCALE ENGINEERING PROBLEMS, MAKING ACCESSIBLE THE MOST RECENT ADVANCES OF PARALLEL COMPUTING AS A CRITICAL COMPONENT IN EVERYDAY ENGINEERING DESIGN. THE SUCCESS OF THIS WORK, BOTH COMMERCIALLY AND TECHNICALLY, WILL BE BASED ON THREE ELEMENTS. FIRST, FLUENT WILL SERVE AS THE FOUNDATION FOR THE NEW PARALLEL CODE. FLUENT IS THE MOST WIDELY USED COMMERCIAL CFD CODE WITH MORE THAN 700 INSTALLATIONS WORLDWIDE. SECOND, RECENT RESULTS ON COMPLEX FLOWS COMPUTED WITH THE ADVANCED RENORMALIZATION GROUP (RNG) TURBULENT TRANSPORT MODELS, ALREADY INCORPORATED AS A STANDARD FEATURE IN THE MOST RECENT RELEASE OF FLUENT, PROMISE TO RENDER MANY OF THE MOST DIFFICULT ENGINEERING PROBLEMS TRACTABLE WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF A SINGLE MODELING THEORY. THE THIRD ELEMENT, AND THE PRIMARY FOCUS OF THIS PROJECT, IS THE PORTING OF THE ROBUST COMPUTATIONAL CORE OF FLUENT/RNG CODE TO PARALLEL ARCHITECTURES. UPON SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF THIS WORK A POWERFUL TOOL FOR SIMULATION OF FLUID FLOW WILL MAKE ACCESSIBLE THE MOST RECENT ADVANCES IN PARALLEL COMPUTERS TO LARGE-SCALE ENGINEERING PROBLEMS IN A USER-FRIENDLY HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT. IN ADDITION, THERE WILL BE A COMPUTATIONALLY ECONOMICAL TOOL FOR FUTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE TURBULENCE MODELS IN DIFFICULT THREE-DIMENSIONAL FLOWS.