Flow past a diesel engine valve.

In the 1990s, scientists from several national laboratories developed a framework for simulating fluid flow in a complex, moving geometry using a method of overlapping grids. Known as Overture, this work demonstrated that carefully engineered software frameworks improve the efficiency and ease of development of large parallel software systems used to study important physical systems such as combustion. Because of its object-oriented design, Overture reduces code duplication, encourages interoperability of application software, and simplifies the learning curve for new computational methods. The architecture provides flexibility to address a wide range of applications that involve simulations in complex moving geometry on serial and parallel computers. Advantages include broader, more in-depth research into numerical methods for scientific and industrial applications. Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, and Los Alamos national laboratories participated, along with the Courant Institute.

Scientific Impact: Overture, available on the World Wide Web as an open source, has greatly simplified the development of scientific simulations in complex geometries. It has enabled worldwide research collaborations in a variety of areas, from simulation of the combustion of reactive fluids for diesel engine simulation to studies of the mechanisms for nutrient uptake by plant roots.

Social Impact: The software approach developed here forms the basis for calculations of fluid flow with important implications for diesel engine design and other combustion problems, aerodynamics, and chemical processing. These processes are important elements of the Nation's energy supply.

Reference: D. L Brown and W. D. Henshaw, "OVERTURE: Object-oriented tools for solving CFD and combustion problems," in High Performance Computing 1998, Grand Challenges in computer Simulation, A. Tentner, ed., pages 21-26, The Soc. for Computer Simul. Int'l, 1998.

URL: http://www.llnl.gov/CASC/Overture/

Technical Contact: Daniel A Hitchcock, Mathematical, Information, & Computational Sciences Division, 301-903-6767

Press Contact: Jeff Sherwood, DOE Office of Public Affairs, 202-586-5806

SC-Funding Office: Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research