Of particular interest are microgravity applications for manufacturing and life support processes relevant to the U.S. space station, space shuttle program and future space projects. The main thrust of the present research is directed to the development of a highly parallel distributed simulation capability for analyzing 3-D transient and steady state coupled viscous flow and transport processes in this class. However, the simulator will also be more broadly applicable to other problems of interest to NASA, U.S. manufacturing, and science and Engineering. Part of the research work also concerns supporting experimental studies on thermocapillary effects in thin films.
Parallelism is achieved using a domain decomposition of the flow domain and mesh.
The resulting discretized problem leads to a sequence of sparse algebraic systems that are solved using a parallel form of generalized conjugate gradient solver. Special attention has been paid to parallel performance issues to meet the performance milestones specified in the contract. The experimental work has been directed to fundamental studies of free surface phenomena for thin films and are being carried out in the Experimental Flows Lab of the Center for Nonlinear Dynamics. Establish project team of programmers, graduate students, post docs, research staff scientists and faculty. Completed update of agreement including negotiated milestones and software deliverables.