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About the NPARC Alliance


Introduction

The NPARC (National Project for Application-oriented Research in CFD) Alliance is a partnership between the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) and the Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) dedicated to the establishment of a national, applications-oriented computational fluid dynamics (CFD) capability, centered on the Wind-US flow solver. Wind-US is a general-purpose, applied CFD tool with a proven track record. Its further development and support is intended to enhance both the military and commercial competitiveness of the U.S., with particular emphasis on the needs of the aerospace community. The Wind-US code has developed a wide following over the last decade, with over 300 governmental, industrial, and academic institutions acquiring it. In line with the evolving emphasis in both NASA and the Department of Defense on the transfer and fostering of advanced technology, the NPARC alliance was formed to meet this need.

Alliance Background

The NASA Glenn Research Center (NASA GRC) and the Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) formed the NPARC Alliance in response to a national requirement for a productive, user friendly, well maintained, well documented, applications-oriented CFD tool. This working relationship has been formalized through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the two organizations.

Alliance Structure

The Alliance structure consists of an Executive Direction Committee which provides management oversight of Alliance activities, two Technical Liasons who provide technical oversight, and a Technical Direction Committee which is responsible for defining and implementing activities in each of the three primary functional areas of Support, Development, and Validation. For each of these functional areas, representatives from each organization (NASA GRC and AEDC) have contributed to the completion of documentation defining the Policies for each area as well as detailed Plans with a schedule of execution for each Fiscal Year. In addition, there also exists the NPARC Association which is administered independently of the Alliance and provides a vehicle for NPARC users to communicate with the Alliance.

NASA GRC and AEDC are jointly committed to the long range maintenance and improvement of the NPARC flow simulation system, including the Wind-US code. The three main tasks of the NPARC Alliance are user support, program development, and validation:

    Support

    The NPARC flow simulation system is maintained under a formal version control system. User's and developer's manual are available via the WWW. AEDC and/or NASA GRC personnel are available to help answer questions via telephone, E-mail, and/or mutually acceptable site visits. A limited amount of service (4 hours) is available, at no cost, to every user organization. More extensive training or consulting can be negotiated on a case by case basis. AEDC and NASA GRC will periodically arrange workshops and conferences. All users will be kept informed of recent modifications to the software and documentation, as well as upcoming NPARC conferences or workshops through appropriate media (e.g. periodic newsletters, E-mail).

    Development

    The NPARC Alliance establishes directions for future development of the NPARC flow simulation system, develops enhancements, and incorporates improvements contributed by other developers. Code developments will continue to emphasize its strengths as a user-oriented, reliable CFD analysis tool.

    Validation

    The NPARC Alliance has assembled and maintains a library of validation data sets, check cases, and experimental data in order to provide a validation audit trail for NPARC. The alliance may also design and perform code validation experiments when inadequate data exists.

Alliance Documentation

As indicated under the discussion of the Alliance Structure above, each of the three functional areas of Support, Development, and Validation have established Policies and Plans documents which, respectively, define the primary goals of each area and activities for the current Fical Year directed at implementing these goals.

Release Procedure

In order to obtain a copy of the Wind-US CFD code and related software, you must complete the process as outlined by the NPARC Software Release Instructions.

Proprietary Protection

The Alliance seeks to leverage the talents and expertise of government, commercial and academic users. Over the last couple of years, a significant number of improvements have been incorporated into the NPARC code by a variety of users. We encourage you to share your modifications with us. The Alliance can incorporate proprietary modifications into special versions of NPARC so that their use is limited to government contractors for a period of up to 18 months. After this period these modifications will be added to the standard version of NPARC. The Alliance will ensure the compatibility of the proprietary modification with all future releases of NPARC.

Point of Contact

If you have any questions or comments concerning the NPARC Alliance or NPARC software, the NPARC support team can be contacted via phone, fax or email:


Last Updated: Wednesday, 10-Feb-2021 10:10:56 EST