NASA Langley Research Center Honor Award - Fulbright.no

The Henry J. E. Reid Award recognizes an outstanding publication, refereed journal article, or other formal NASA archival media first authored by a Langley Research Center (LaRC) Civil Service employee, an Army civilian, or an on/near site contractor based on research primarily performed at LaRC. Placing for this award is considered very prestigious within LaRC and the award covers all scientific activities at LaRC.

The paper Rumsey, C. L., Pettersson Reif, B. A. and Gatski, T. B. "Arbitrary Steady-State Solutions with the K-Epsilon Model”, AIAA J, Vol 44, No 7, pp. 1586-1592 (2006), tied for 2nd place. (The H.J.E. Reid Award was this year presented to Davila et al.  "Failure Criteria for FRP Laminates", Journal of Composite Materials, Vol. 39, No. 4, 323-345 (2005)).

Dr. Bjørn Anders Pettersson Reif (40 years) works as a Principal Scientist at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI), Kjeller, and has a part time position as Adjunct Professor at the Turbulence Research Laboratory, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.  Pettersson Reif was a Fulbright Scholar at NASA LaRC, Computational Aeroscience Branch, Hampton, VA, 2004 – 2005. During his stay at NASA he published five journal articles. The nominated paper, first authored by NASA Senior Scientist, Dr. Christopher L. Rumsey, described the application of a simple but powerful analytical tool to analyze mathematical models used to compute turbulent flows around for instance aircrafts. The method was theoretically developed in an accompanying paper (Pettersson Reif, B. A., Gatski, T. B.. and Rumsey C. L. “On the behavior of two-equation models in non-equilibrium homogeneous turbulence“, Physics of Fluids, Vol. 18, No. 6 (2006)).

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a computational technique used to determine the spatial and temporal motion of fluids (liquids or gasses). CFD is now an integral part in the design process in a growing number of industries. While the enormous speed-up of computers is fueling that growth, the growth is primarily motivated by our increased need to understand complex fluid flow systems. As the complexity increases, however, the ranges of fluid flow phenomena that arise also increase. This need inherently spawns the development of more and more sophisticated models. But as this development has continued over the last ten years or so, it has been necessary to also focus the attention on quality assurance procedures vital to the industry. The main finding of the placed paper addresses this important aspect of CFD, and it was in particularly shown that commonly used mathematical models used in aero- and hydro-dynamical applications can yield arbitrary solutions that are highly unphysical. This erroneous behavior has not previously been recognized due to the complexity of the mathematical models. The practical implications of the results have been significant, and the quality assurance procedures employed by NASA, and other organizations, have accordingly been revisited.

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