|
The ILab tool was specifically written to solve the complex and difficult problems of creating and launching parameter studies. Though today's distributed computational resources are quite capable of running large parameter studies for aerospace problems, users have not had tools available to them that make this process easy and fast. ILab was developed with a host of user-friendly features, so that creating and launching parameter studies can now be accomplished simply and in just minutes.
Within the last year, the ILab tool was given an intuitive user interface. Users can now specify their processes via an advanced computer-aided design (CAD) approach by visually constructing a flowchart-like graphic. ILab's code generator subsequently translates this into appropriate shell scripts, which are then launched onto remote systems and monitored. Researchers whose parameter studies consist of individual jobs with long-running computa-tional fluid dynamics problems can now take advantage of ILab's unique "restart" capability. This allows users to automatically segment their jobs onto supercomputer scheduling systems and to modify solver parameters for the purpose of steering the computation to a stable solution. Load balancing of jobs is automatically accomplished by restarting the jobs onto supercomputer systems with immediate processing availability. In addition, an advanced Help system has been built into ILab, which users can access from any ILab screen.
Pictured (fig. 1) is the special-purpose parameterization screen (bottom left) which automates the construction of input files for multi-dimension parametric studies. The monitoring screen (upper left) shows the progress of individual jobs in a parameter study experiment. The NASA X-38 Crew Return Vehicle (upper right) was the subject of a two-dimensional parameter study in Mach number and angle of attack. ILab generated and submitted 192 separate flow-field computations for the requested 16 values of Mach number and 12 values of angle of attack. Pictured (bottom right) is the surface of coefficients of lift-over-drag for the X-38 at these 192 parameter combinations.
Point of Contact: Maurice Yarrow
(650) 604-5708
fmilos@mail.arc.nasa.gov
Back To Top
Previous Paper
Return to Advanced Space Transportation
Next Paper |
