LAVA Voronoi Mesher for Wall-Modeled Large-Eddy Simulations

Speaker: Victor C. B. Sousa, Science and Technology Corporation / NASA Ames Research Center
October 8, 2024

Presentation

Abstract

In this presentation the unstructured Voronoi mesher currently being developed within the Launch, Ascent, and Vehicle Aerodynamics (LAVA) software framework at NASA Ames Research Center is described in detail. The discussion covers strategies for the seeding and smoothing phases to ensure high-quality meshes for Wall-Modeled Large-Eddy Simulations (WMLES), as well as methods for the cell clipping algorithm that adapts the mesh to complex geometries and the process of creating a global mesh from individual Voronoi cells. The benefits and applications of this meshing approach are highlighted. The automated meshing paradigm introduced was able to significantly reduce the time necessary to create a high-quality body-fitted mesh around a complex geometry when compared against the LAVA curvilinear overset WMLES meshing standard. For example, the task of generating a single structured curvilinear overset mesh around the High-Lift Common Research Model (CRM-HL) requires the full dedication of a mesh generation expert for a period of multiple months. Meanwhile, a family of meshes with different refinement levels up to six hundred million cells can be generated by a single engineer using the LAVA Voronoi mesher in a day or two.

This work is supported by NASA's Transformational Tools and Technologies (T³) Project.

Biography

Victor Sousa is a research engineer for Science and Technology Corporation, working in the Computational Aerosciences Branch of the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division at Ames Research Center. He earned his Ph.D. from Purdue University in 2022 where he focused on numerical modeling of compressible flows and hypersonic boundary layer transition and then immediately joined the LAVA (Launch, Ascent, and Vehicle Aerodynamics) group.

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