Project description
Aerospace modelling tools get an upgrade to harness the most powerful computing platforms
When it comes to aerospace design, trial and error has no place. Prototyping and wind tunnel testing campaigns are phenomenally expensive, as are real flight tests. Large-scale computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models have been integral to reducing the costs and time of aerospace development while enhancing the performance of components and systems. However, they are lagging behind the exponential rate at which computing power is increasing. The EU-funded NextSim project is developing the next generation of CFD tools for extreme-scale parallel computing platforms. The tools will enable the industry to solve problems currently out of reach within the constraints of balancing accuracy versus computational load.
Objective
NextSim partners, as fundamental European players in Aeronautics and Simulation, recognise that there is a need to increase the capabilities of current Computational Fluid Dynamics tools for aeronautical design by re-engineering them for extreme-scale parallel computing platforms. The backbone of NextSim is centred on the fact that, today, the capabilities of leading-edge emerging HPC architectures are not fully exploited by industrial simulation tools. Current state-of-the-art industrial solvers do not take sufficient advantage of the immense capabilities of new hardware architectures, such as streaming processors or many-core platforms. A combined research effort focusing on algorithms and HPC is the only way to make possible to develop and advance simulation tools to meet the needs of the European aeronautical industry. NextSim will focus on the development of the numerical flow solver CODA (Finite Volume and high-order discontinuous Galerkin schemes), that will be the new reference solver for aerodynamic applications inside AIRBUS group, having a significant impact in the aeronautical market. To demonstrate NextSim market impact, AIRBUS has defined a series of market relevant problems. The numerical simulation of those problems is still a challenge for the aeronautical industry and their solution, at a required accuracy and an affordable computational costs, is still not possible with the current industrial solvers. Following this idea, three additional working areas are proposed in NextSim: algorithms for numerical efficiency, algorithms for data management and the efficiency implementation of those algorithms in the most advanced HPC platforms. Finally, NextSim will provide access to project results trough the “mini-apps” concept, small pieces of software, seeking synergies with open-source components, which demonstrate the use of the novel mathematical methods and algorithms developed in CODA but that will be freely distributed to the scientific community.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringaerospace engineering
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesclassical mechanicsfluid mechanicsfluid dynamicscomputational fluid dynamics
- natural sciencesmathematicsapplied mathematicsnumerical analysis
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencessoftwaresoftware applicationssimulation software
- natural sciencesmathematicsapplied mathematicsmathematical model
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
IA - Innovation actionCoordinator
08034 Barcelona
Spain