applications


AS COMPUTATIONAL POWER INCREASES AND SOFTWARE CAPABILITIES BECOME BETTER, THE LINE BETWEEN THESE GLOBAL AND LOCAL MODELS IS BLURRING, WITH LOCAL MODELS BECOMING BIGGER AND LESS LOCAL AND GLOBAL MODELS BECOMING MUCH MORE DETAILED


pull the design in different directions. Te use of multiphysics soſtware, such as COMSOL Multiphysics, allows engineers to consider all of these requirements in one go and increase the probability of successfully meeting deadlines.’ Simulation and modelling also allows for


models becoming much more detailed. As the margins of performance are squeezed even further, these lines will continue to blur,’ he added.


Safety first Te combination of requirements from a reliability, safety, aesthetics, ergonomic design, time-to-market and environmental aspect represents a huge challenge when simulating components for the aerospace sector. Marra explained: ‘All of these frequently


the analysis of components in situations where physical testing cannot reveal certain information, because measurements are dangerous, expensive, or even impossible to obtain through experiments. Marra said: ‘Such scenarios include products that operate in space, harsh environments, or at very large or small scales.’ But real-world testing can’t be completely


discounted though, for several reasons. ‘For example, some material properties or parameters might be affected by uncertainties in their measurement, hence physical testing is still important,’ Marra added. Tis is a particularly pertinent point from


a safety perspective, as Harwood explained: ‘Te industry is very safety conscious, so any simulation approach must be accurate and validated and ultimately proven in some


form of physical test environment.’ ‘More and more, a small part is not just


some isolated component but is an active part of a system. In that sense, you could say parts are becoming multifunctional – only by considering the breadth of influences (aerodynamic, thermal, structural, electromagnetic) can you truly understand the real-world performance,’ Harwood added. In other words, no matter how small


compared to the scale of the full vehicle, the components of an aerospace system can have a huge impact on its operation. Sensors are a good example here. An


aircraſt has a lot of sensors, but the failure of a sensor, or a sensor giving the wrong reading can have a serious impact on aircraſt safety or passenger comfort. Marra added: ‘One way engineers understand how large systems work is by considering more components, which also results in their model growing in complexity, and evaluating the effects on the overall performance. Simulation allows them to evaluate and isolate the best case scenario of the impact on each component.’ Te components of the simulation soſtware


itself also represent one of the biggest challenges when designing and optimising the physical components of the aerospace industry. Poloni explained: ‘If you consider the aerospace industry as a whole, you may have very large departments where each one has a specific competence on specific components. ‘Te biggest challenge in designing an


aircraſt or aerospace vehicle is the integration between subsystems and systems and being able to manage all these integrations inside the same platform,’ he added. Te aerospace industry as a whole is


a complex system to untangle at every discernible level – but performances can be optimised through the use of simulation and modelling – one component at a time. l


Passive particle visualisation of a pylon-installed, contra-rotating, open-rotor simulation created using the Launch Ascent and Vehicle Aerodynamics (LAVA) code’s Cartesian higher-order accurate computational fluid dynamics solver. LAVA was developed in the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division at NASA’s Ames Research Center. Red particles are seeded on upstream blades, blue on aft blades. Solid colors are seeded on tips, while faded colors are on blade trailing edges


www.scientific-computing.com l @scwmagazine APRIL/MAY 2017 29


Mathworks


Timothy Sandstrom, Michael Barad, NASA/Ames


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