This grid generation script creates unstructured CFD grids for rapid thermal protection system (TPS) damage aeroheating assessments. The existing manual solution is cumbersome, open to errors, and slow.

The invention takes a large-scale geometry grid and its large-scale CFD solution, and creates a unstructured “patch” grid that models the TPS damage. The flow field boundary condition for the “patch” grid is then interpolated from the large-scale CFD solution. It speeds up the generation of CFD grids and solutions in the modeling of TPS damages and their aeroheating assessment. This process was successfully utilized during STS-134.

This work was done by Peter McCloud of The Boeing Company for Johnson Space Center. For further information, contact the JSC Innovation Partnerships Office at (281) 483-3809. MSC-24865-1