The structural integrity, performance and development costs of these products are affected by the unsteady flow fields they encounter. Dynamic loads cause structural fatigue which can result in expensive development and maintenance costs.
Unsteady flows can also generate noise that increases approximately as velocity to the sixth power.
Therefore, the aerodynamic noise generated by vehicles traveling at high speeds can be very annoying to both passengers and communities located in the proximity of major highways and railroads. In light of the importance in characterizing the dynamic flow environment, we have initiated a multiyear effort to develop a computational fluid dynamic based analysis system. This system will provide high-fidelity predictive capability through the development of a high order numerical algorithm and utilization of distributed parallel computing. This approach maintains tight coupling among the governing equations and yields boundary conditions that are consistent with the flow physics and mathematical constraints. High order accuracy is preserved in the entire flow domain including the boundaries.