Inventors:
Athanassios Dimas - Rockville MD
Isaac Lottati - Potomac MD
Peter Bernard - Silver Spring MD
James Collins - Sykesville MD
James C. Geiger - Rockville MD
Assignee:
Vorcat, Inc. - Rockville MD
International Classification:
G06F 748
Abstract:
In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention, a novel apparatus for and method of simulating physical processes such as fluid flow is provided. Fluid flow near a boundary or wall of an object is represented by a collection of vortex sheet layers. The layers are composed of a grid or mesh of one or more geometrically shaped space filling elements. In the preferred embodiment, the space filling elements take on a triangular shape. An Eulerian approach is employed for the vortex sheets, where a finite-volume scheme is used on the prismatic grid formed by the vortex sheet layers. A Lagrangian approach is employed for the vortical elements (e. g. , vortex tubes or filaments) found in the remainder of the flow domain. To reduce the computational time, a hairpin removal scheme is employed to reduce the number of vortex filaments, and a Fast Multipole Method (FMM), preferably implemented using parallel processing techniques, reduces the computation of the velocity field.