VISTEON CORP

SBIR PHASE II, ENTITLED: A POST-PROCESSING SYSTEM FOR PHYSICS BASED DERIVED ROTORCRAFT COMPUTATIONAL AERO-ACOUSTICS SIMULATIONS. TECHNICAL ABSTRACT: INTELLIGENT LIGHT, THE MAKERS OF THE FIELDVIEW CFD POST-PROCESSING SOFTWARE, IN RESPONSE TO NASA SBIR PHASE 2 SOLICITATION, PROPOSES AN EFFORT THAT ADDRESSES A2.10 ROTORCRAFT-ACOUSTICS. THE PROPOSED WORK SHALL RESULT IN A SPECIALIZED PROTOTYPE POST-PROCESSING SYSTEM DESIGNED FOR LARGE ROTORCRAFT ACOUSTICS PROBLEMS. THIS SYSTEM IS DESIGNATED AS RCAAPS -- ROTORCRAFT COMPUTATIONAL AERO-ACOUSTICS POST-PROCESSING SYSTEM. IT IS DESIGNED TO EXPEDITE THE EXPLORATION OF LARGE TRANSIENT DATASETS THAT RESULT FROM MULTI-PHYSICS BASED (I.E. LARGE-EDDY SIMULATION WITH AEROELASTICITY AND ACOUSTICS) SIMULATIONS AS IT PERTAINS TO ROTORCRAFT PERFORMANCE PREDICTIONS ESPECIALLY MANEUVER. IT CONSISTS OF SPECIALLY CONFIGURED HARDWARE, FLOW SOLVER, ACOUSTICS AND POST-PROCESSING SOFTWARE ENHANCED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF CONTEMPORARY SMP COMPUTER CLUSTERS DURING BOTH COMPUTE AND I/O. THE PROTOTYPE SYSTEM DEVELOPED UNDER THIS SBIR WILL REVOLUTIONIZE THE WAY INVESTIGATORS EXPLORE LARGE DATASETS AND ALLOWS FOR MORE COMPLETE AND THOROUGH USE OF THE COMPLETE CFD AND ACOUSTICS DATA. POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: AERO-ACOUSTIC ANALYSIS IS OF HIGH IMPORTANCE TO MANUFACTURERS OF BOTH FIXED WING AIRCRAFT AND ROTORCRAFT. A SYSTEM SUCH AS RCAAPS WILL SIGNIFICANTLY ADVANCE THE TOOLS AVAILABLE TO VARIOUS US INDUSTRY FOR THE DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL NOISE FROM SUCH MACHINES - THIS IS BECOMING MORE AND MORE OF A PRIORITY TODAY, BOTH IN COMBAT AND COMMERCIAL OPERATIONS. COMPANIES SUCH AS SIKORSKY, BOEING AND BELL ARE AMONG THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED INTEREST IN THIS CAPABILITY. AIRCRAFT ENGINE MANUFACTURERS SUCH AS GE, PRATT & WHITNEY AND ROLLS ROYCE ARE BEGINNING TO UTILIZE 3D UNSTEADY SIMULATIONS IN AN EFFORT TO REDUCE THE ACOUSTIC SIGNATURE OF THEIR PRODUCTS. AUTOMOTIVE COMPANIES SUCH AS TOYOTA AND VISTEON, BOTH CUSTOMERS OF INTELLIGENT LIGHT, PERFORM AEROACOUSTIC STUDIES TO REDUCE CABIN NOISE THROUGH OPTIMIZATIONS FOR EXTERNAL AEROACOUSTICS AND FAN NOISE FROM AIR HANDLING UNITS. RCAAPS WOULD ENABLE THE SOUND ANALYSIS FOR ALL THESE INDUSTRIES. POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: RCAAPS HAS TWO POTENTIAL BENEFITS TO NASA: AS A HIGHLY EFFECTIVE TOOL TO ADVANCE THE USEFULNESS OF ROTORCRAFT SIMULATION AND AS A POST-PROCESSING TOOL TO SUPPORT ALL TYPES OF UNSTEADY DESIGN AND ANALYSIS TOOLS. RCAAPS PRIMARY FOCUS IS AEROACOUSTICS, WHICH HAS APPLICATION IN ENVIRONMENTAL NOISE REDUCTION FOR ROTORCRAFT AND FIXED WING AIRCRAFT IN HIGH-LIFT CONFIGURATIONS. THE FUNDAMENTAL TECHNOLOGIES (INTEGRATED HIGH-PERFORMANCE PARALLEL I/O, HIGH PERFORMANCE CFD-SPECIFIC NUMERICAL METHODS, 'POINT AND CLICK' INTERROGATION OF LARGE UNSTEADY RUNS) WILL BE APPLIED TO THE SOFTWARE PRODUCTS THAT THE OFFEROR CURRENTLY MARKETS, SUCH AS FIELDVIEW AND FIELDVIEW EXTREME (FOR VIRTUAL REALITY ENVIRONMENTS), ALONG WITH NEXT-GENERATION TOOLS CURRENTLY UNDER DEVELOPMENT.