A Scalable and Extensible Computational Fluid Dynamics Software Framework for Ship Hydrodynamics Applications: NavyFOAM
By Lori Cameron
The main challenge facing simulation-based hydrodynamic design of naval ships comes from the complexity of the salient physics involved around ships, which is further compounded by the multidisciplinary nature of ship applications. Simulation of the flow physics using “first principles” is computationally very expensive and time-consuming.
Other challenges largely pertain to software engineering, ranging from software architecture, verification and validation (V & V), and quality assurance.
In the article “A Scalable and Extensible Computational Fluid Dynamics Software Framework for Ship Hydrodynamics Applications: NavyFOAM,” (login may be required for full text) published in the November/December issue of Computing in Science & Engineering, researchers present a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) framework called NavyFOAM that has been built around OpenFOAM, an open source CFD library written in C that heavily draws upon object-oriented programming.
Also in the article, the design philosophy, features, and capabilities of the software framework, and computational approaches underlying NavyFOAM are described, followed by a description of the V&V effort and application examples selected from Navy’s recent R&D and acquisition programs.e (a) tweet density, (b) tweet flow, (c) word cloud, (d) tweet timeline, (e) flow length and time, and (f) tweet language and topic.[/caption]
Its value lies in its unique combination of topical, spatial, temporal, and flow analysis, designed to help professionals prepare and plan for the future of cities.
"Urban Space Explorer is the beginning of a transformation in the ways city professionals study urban settings. We believe in the near future the use of exploratory visual analytics interfaces such as ours will become a major tool for the study, observation, design, and policy formulation for the future of our cities," say the authors.
The other authors of the research are Isaac Cho, William Ribarsky, Eric Sauda, and Wenwen Dou of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Ginette Wessel of Roger Williams University.
About Lori Cameron
Lori Cameron is a Senior Writer for the IEEE Computer Society and currently writes regular features for Computer magazine, Computing Edge, and the Computing Now and Magazine Roundup websites. Contact her at l.cameron@computer.org. Follow her on LinkedIn.
