Return to the Table of ContentsObjective: The Numerical Propulsion System Simulation is a program focused on reducing the cost and time in developing aeropropulsion engines. The NPSS program intends to build a simulation environment that allows for the arbitrary construction of engine configurations for analysis and design. Furthermore, the software environment will permit the choice of analysis techniques, analysis complexity, languages and the ability to access and manage data from various sources.
Approach: As a first step, NPSS will provide a prototype object based 1D Steady State, Transient thermodynamic aircraft engine simulator based on the public domain DIGTEM engine simulation. The prototype built demonstrated the usefulness of object oriented modeling for dynamic engine simulations, for distributed applications and for supporting numerical zooming.
Accomplishment: In FY93, the NPSS Simulation environment was extended to include the ability to Numerically Zoom between levels of fidelity of codes. The NPSS MOD0 release provided the correct software platform that enables engine component codes to be distributed across computing architectures. The NPSS MOD1 release with accompanying documentation was made available to industry in February 94. Specifically, NPSS MOD1 : Demonstrated Numerical Zooming was achievable through the use of an Object Oriented design of the DIGTEM code;
Significance: The NPSS MOD1 employs the object based model for engine simulations. The object model allows for engine components such as a compressor, combustor, turbine, shaft, etc to be modeled in the numerical simulation as independent entities that can be replaced with component models of greater fidelity that execute on differing computing platforms in a dynamic environment. This capability combined with the graphical user interface allows an engineer to construct arbitrary engine configurations with ease.
Status/Plans: The NPSS engine simulation prototypes have generated interest within the US Aeropropulsion industry to work with Lewis on defining and building a US standard for 1D preliminary design codes. In FY94, Lewis and the US Aeropropulsion Industry began to build a new Object Oriented based 1D design code that will: 1) Incorporate the NPSS concept of numerical zooming and; 2) Incorporate the Multi-disciplinary interactions through Object Oriented Modeling.
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