Parallel distributed numerical simulations in aeronautic applications

The numerical simulation plays a key role in industrial design because it enables to reduce the time and the cost to develop new products. Because of the international competition, it is important to have a complete chain of simulation tools to perform efficiently some virtual prototyping. In this paper, we describe two components of large aeronautic numerical simulation chains that are extremely consuming of computer resource. The first is involved in computational fluid dynamics for aerodynamic studies. The second is used to study the wave propagation phenomena and is involved in acoustics. Because those softwares are used to analyze large and complex case studies in a limited amount of time, they are implemented on parallel distributed computers. We describe the physical problems addressed by these codes, the main characteristics of their implementation. For the sake of re-usability and interoperability, these softwares are developed using object-oriented technologies. We illustrate their parallel performance on clusters of symmetric multi-processors. Finally, we discuss some challenges for the future generations of parallel distributed numerical software that will have to enable the simulation of multi-physic phenomena in the context of virtual organizations also known as the extended enterprise. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.