NASA STTR 2009 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (SBC):		RESEARCH INSTITUTION (RI):
NAME:	ResearchSouth, Inc.	NAME:	George Mason University
STREET:	555 Sparkman Dr. Suite 1612	STREET:	4400 University Drive
CITY:	Huntsville	CITY:	Fairfax
STATE/ZIP:	AL  35816 - 3431	STATE/ZIP:	VA  22030 - 4444
PHONE:	(256) 721-1769	PHONE:	(703) 993-4573

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Lawrence W Spradley
lawrence@researchsouthinc.com
555 Sparkman Dr, Suite 1612
Huntsville, AL 35816 - 0000
(256) 721-1769

Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 4
End: 8

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
The innovation of our Phase II STTR program is to develop and provide to NASA automatic mesh generation software for the simulation of fluid flows using Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes codes. As a result of the successful Phase I work, these new tools are now capable of generating high-quality, highly-stretched (anisotropic) meshes in boundary layer regions and transition smoothly to inviscid flow regions, even in an adaptive context. The significance is that our method has the ability to generate a boundary layer mesh while keeping intact the previous adaptation procedures from non viscous simulations. This leads to a natural coupling between boundary layer mesh generation and anisotropic mesh adaptation. All of the Phase I objectives were met and all tasks were completed successfully. The Phase II project will include improvements in surface remeshing, coding for optimal speed and increased robustness of the solvers, adding a mesh optimization module, providing a link to general CAD packages, include unsteady coupling where the boundary layer mesh refinement evolves in time, conduct further validation and verification on NASA models by running flow cases with our solver, documenting the project, and delivering the new meshing software to NASA.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
Next generation Space Launch Systems are being designed at NASA for access to space. These include launch configurations for earth-to-orbit to access the International Space Station and to launch modules for eventual landing on asteroids and moons and entry into the Mars atmosphere. Design of new and powerful propulsion systems will be a major requirement for this new generation aerospace flight hardware. Launch pad design, with rocket plume trenches, for these new booster configurations also requires high fidelity base flow and heating predictions. Our proposed program addresses the time-critical technology development item by providing a new anisotropic meshing code to address high Reynolds number viscous flow fields. The software to be provided in this SBIR project is a computational capability which is critical for design and analysis of these next generation space vehicles.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
There are important commercial problems that can directly use and benefit from the application of our software. Some example industries and applications are: Analysis of nuclear blast accidents from power plants: Automobile manufacturers for design of car and truck engines, transmissions and issues including engine cooling, under-hood flows, and air bag design: Airline companies who are responsible for maintaining safe flying machines: Watercraft design for safety concerns: Bio-Medical applications such as blood flow in elastic arteries, hearts, and air flow in lungs: Computer simulation of blast waves for use in anti-terrorists investigations: Housing design for protection from hurricanes, and tornados: The entertainment industry and film makers for taping building and bridge collapse, bombs blowing up buildings, and storms destroying structures: Heating and air conditioning manufacturers for home units, large office complexes and automobile air conditioning systems.

TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING (NASA's technology taxonomy has been developed by the SBIR-STTR program to disseminate awareness of proposed and awarded R/R&D in the agency. It is a listing of over 100 technologies, sorted into broad categories, of interest to NASA.)

Aircraft Engines Computational Materials Simulation Modeling Environment Structural Modeling and Tools