• Dr. Pieter Buning
  • NASA Langley
  • Holden Auditorium (Room 112)
  • 4:00 p.m.
  • Faculty Hosts: Dr. Christopher Roy

This talk will describe the application of the NASA OVERFLOW overset grid computational fluid dynamics (CFD) flow solver to several flow simulation problems associated with the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). These problems are associated with the Mars atmosphere entry, and with the descent and landing phase, where the descent stage slows down, hovers, and lowers the rover to the ground.  In each of these cases, successes and difficulties with the computational approach will be highlighted.

Biography:

Dr. Pieter Buning received BS degrees in Aerospace Engineering and Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan, and MS and PhD degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University.  He joined NASA Ames Research Center in 1979, studying numerical methods, computational efficiency and scientific visualization, authoring the PLOT3D visualization code for CFD.

After spending a year at Boeing, Pieter returned to Ames in 1989 to work on development of overset grid methods, with application to the Space Shuttle launch vehicle.  This work, in collaboration with team members at Ames Research Center and Johnson Space Center, led to development of the OVERFLOW CFD code and various grid generation tools for complex configurations.  Starting in 1992, these tools were further refined on subsonic commercial transport configurations.

Pieter transferred to NASA Langley in 1996, where he continued to work on CFD tool development and applications, including stage separation, capsule aerodynamics, and Mars entry, descent and landing.  He is currently in the Computational AeroSciences Branch, where his research is focused on improving the accuracy of CFD simulation of rotorcraft flows.