SBIR-STTR Award

JavaTech LLC, proposes to develop a novel general-purpose software for the interdisciplinary design of the next generation of space transportation systems with regard to automatic optimization of integrated propulsion systems and aerospace vehicle concepts. The proposed software will have the ability to model various propulsion systems by allowing easy replacement of implementation of new physical models, to independently vary the level of fidelity on a per-component basis as well as to fully integrate the propulsion systems with vehicle characteristics by automatic coupling to CFD and other solvers. The software also provides advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools for the evaluation of fluid and aero-dynamics, propulsion system performance, and thermal protection systems. The proposed software architecture is written in the Java language; this allows complete portability of the software and its associated visualization and GUI tools. In Phase I, the system design software will be written in the .NET environment of Microsoft. The architecture would be completely open and flexible, such that the code can be easily maintained and modified to include other modeling capabilities and interface with other software. The Phase I work will consist of demonstrating the potential capability of the software on a specific example, while constructing the basic architecture to be used in subsequent Phase II and commercial applications. Software design tools have a number of potential commercial applications. The primary software will be designed for the needs of the US Government and the private aerospace industry. Furthermore, the high flexibility and complete Object Oriented Design of the software will facilitate its adaptation to other applications, for other industries: for example, the same CFD tools could be applied to non-aerospace problems (combustion flows, turbine design, power generation, cars), or could be generalized for such applications (materials processing)

Critical to the cost-effective development of future space transportation systems is the ability to rapidly evaluate advanced vehicle concepts and propulsion systems from an integrated perspective and with varying levels of fidelity. The objective of this project is to complete and demonstrate the core elements of this novel approach and focus on components of propulsion systems and vehicle integration to accelerate the development of fully integrated software in the Java object-oriented programming environment. Phase I demonstrated the Graphical User Interface and Solver packages for several launch vehicle subsystems. The work presented in Phase I was based on an underlying computing architecture in Java. Phase II will result in a computational architecture and basic software framework for interdisciplinary design and rapid evaluation of aerospace vehicle concepts and integrated propulsion systems. The effectiveness of this framework will be demonstrated with a generic launch vehicle. Phase III tasks are to expand this capability by integrating additional analysis modules, evaluate this environment at different levels of fidelity the practical characteristics of a range of advanced propulsion concepts, measure performance and optimize where necessary, and pro-duce the documentation and support infrastructure expected for a commercial product.

Keywords:
INTERDISCIPLINARY SPACE VEHICLE DESIGN AND OPTIMISATION DESIGN AND ANALYSIS SOFTWARE TOOLS JAVA OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING