Abstract

Computational fluid dynamics simulations are advancing to correctly simulate highly complex fluid flow problems that can require weeks of computation on expensive high performance clusters. These simulations can generate terabytes of data and pose a severe challenge to a researcher analyzing the data. Presented in this document is a general method to extract computational fluid dynamics flow features concurrent with a simulation and as a post-processing step to drastically reduce researcher post-processing time. This general method uses software agents governed by subjective logic to make decisions about extracted features in converging and converged data sets. The software agents are designed to work inside the Concurrent Agent-enabled Feature Extraction concept and operate efficiently on massively parallel high performance computing clusters. Also presented is a specific application of the general feature extraction method to vortex core lines. Each agent's belief tuple is quantified using a pre-defined set of information. The information and functions necessary to set each component in each agent's belief tuple is given along with an explanation of the methods for setting the components. A simulation of a blunt fin is run showing convergence of the horseshoe vortex core to its final spatial location at 60% of the converged solution. Agents correctly select between two vortex core extraction algorithms and correctly identify the expected probabilities of vortex cores as the solution converges. A simulation of a delta wing is run showing coherently extracted primary vortex cores as early as 16% of the converged solution. Agents select primary vortex cores extracted by the Sujudi-Haimes algorithm as the most probable primary cores. These simulations show concurrent feature extraction is possible and that intelligent agents following the general feature extraction method are able to make appropriate decisions about converging and converged features based on pre-defined information.

Degree

College and Department

Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology; Mechanical Engineering

Rights

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