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Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Applications

Computations in the fluids area have stretched the resources of machines such as the IBM SP-2 in the Cornell Theory Center, and have been developed largely on Unix work stations (primarily SGI for their graphics capabilities). We briefly describe two such projects below. Computations in the area of dynamics and control have been done partially on Macintosh and PC machines (using Matlab and Mathematica), with some of the more intensive dynamical simulations done on Unix work stations. Access to the most powerful IA machines currently available will allow the theoretical research using Matlab and Mathematica to be applied to larger and more realistic problems, and the dynamical simulation research to bring the research computational environment into the classroom. Two of the five projects

Nonlinear Dynamics and Control of Multi-Body Systems. Active control of modern machines requires integrating the equations of motion. Computational approaches have revolutionized this field, where the equations of rigid and flexible body systems involve essential nonlinear terms. Control laws and actuator dynamics can also introduce nonlinearities. Simple systems have been explored for a variety of nonlinear phenomena, including chaotic behavior, but more complicated multi-body systems have not been explored for chaotic dynamics, in part, because of the difficulty in running the long time simulations needed to diagnose potential nonlinear and chaotic phenomena.

Computer Modeling of Turbulent Reactive Flows. At Cornell, we have pioneered methods for modeling turbulent reactive flows that are now in wide commercial use, for example in the gas-turbine industry. These methods involve a particle/mesh Monte Carlo method which is computationally intensive. The codes currently are run on Unix workstations, and in parallel on the IBM SP-2. In industry, the typical computing environment for this kind of calculation is a cluster of workstations. At Pratt & Whitney, up to 2,000 workstations routinely are used for a single calculation, the proposed project will experiments with clusters of PCs.

Participants

	I.D. Boyd, Associate Professor, Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
	R. D’Andrea, Assistant Professor, Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
	F.C. Moon, Professor, Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
	S.B. Pope, Professor, Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
	M.L. Psiaki, Associate Professor, Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Web Links

	Nonequilibrium Gases and Plasmas
	Combustion and Turbulence Group

Last modified on: 07/30/99