Dynamic risk assessment of CFD codes [aerospace design]

The results of an innovative effort to dynamically extract risk measures that can be factored into the knowledge-base closed-loop control of flow calculations is presented. Example control decisions include changing flow-solving parameters or restarting from previous checkpoints to reduce the need for manual intervention. One significance of the work is a formal, rigorous, yet practical KB means to dynamically control the execution of CFD codes by interpreting solution metrics within the context of larger project-related factors. Such factors include the desired solution fidelity, resource limitations such as budget and time, and related previously completed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analyses. A measure of the risk associated with continuing, changing, or stopping flow calculations is developed in a manner that can be considered when deliberating if, how, and when to change flow calculations. We demonstrate the benefits of extracting and factoring in measures of risk when controlling the execution of CFD codes.