Services
Over its 40+ years of operation, the staff of Continuum Dynamics, Inc. have developed a broad base of experience that allows us to address a wide range of challenging problems for our customers. A selection of our recent and ongoing work includes:
- unique, high fidelity analysis, design support, and simulation tools for aircraft, rotorcraft, eVTOL vehicles, and wind turbines;
- novel hybrid CFD methods offering high modeling fidelity in realistic aerodynamic and hydrodynamic problems with greatly reduced setup and computational cost;
- state of the art acoustic and fluid/structural interaction modeling for power plant piping systems;
- advanced computational algorithms for molecular dynamics modeling as well as a wide range of High Performance Computing (HPC) problems;
- efficient, physics-based modeling of stores separation, countermeasures dispersal, and groundfall of aerially released materials;
- compact smart materials-based devices for multiple applications, ranging from rotorcraft vibration mitigation to intelligent flow control for wind turbines;
- scaling methodologies and deep test support experience enabling high payoff, fast-turnaround assembly of critical engineering data
The following summarizes a partial list of particular areas of past and ongoing work.
Aerospace Engineering
We offer aircraft design and analysis services across the full life cycle of aircraft development, from technology demonstrators and prototypes to government programs of record (PoR) and fully certified platforms
Our expertise cover:
- helicopters
- multirotor UAS/drones
- distributed propulsion eVTOL/eSTOL,
- novel configurations
- Specializing in “comprehensive” analysis using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), interactional aerodynamics and aero-acoustics
- CFD analysis provided by our in house CGE software suite
- Bolt-on upgrade replacements for OEM (civilian and military) helicopter rotor blades
- Clean-sheet helicopter rotor blade (main rotor and tail rotor) designs
- FAA/EASA certified and fielded designs operating worldwide
- Successful rotor blade design programs include:
- Erickson S-64 Composite Main Rotor Blade (CMRB)
- Carson S-61 Composite Main Rotor Rotor Blade
- Schiebel S-100 main and tail rotor blades
- CDI designed main rotor blades are currently installed on the VH-3D presidential helicopter
- Propeller designs for fixed wing, Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) configuration
Expertise in physics-based analysis to support edge of envelope and unsteady environments including:
- ship airwakes
- building flows
- urban canyons
- formation flight
- vortex ring state
- downwash/outwash
Specializing in:
- Tactical countermeasures
- Particulates
- Entrainment
Systems developed for:
- helicopters (main rotor/tail rotor configurations)
- VTOLs
- multi-rotors
- UAM configurations
- AAM configurations
- fixed-wing aircraft
External and internal aerodynamic and structural analysis for the optimization of power generating turbines
Noise prediction accomplished through coupling between CDI’s in house CHARM rotorcraft analysis code and PSU-WOPWOP
Environmental Engineering
- Deposition and drift of crop protection chemicals released from helicopters, aircraft, and UAS/drones
- Deposition and drift of crop protection chemicals released from ground sprayers, backpack sprayers, ATVs, and airblast sprayers
- Real-time control and optimization of material release to ensure uniform on-target deposition with minimal drift
- Lead developer of the AGDISP family of software
- Modeling of wind turbine arrays and novel turbine designs
- Advanced CFD methods for turbine design support and analysis
- Analytical emphasis on first-principles unsteady wake interactions
- Deployable, self-protecting variable geometry wind turbines for expeditionary and other “small wind” type applications
- Self-protecting variable geometry wind turbines for offshore applications
- Hybrid heeling self-protecting variable geometry wind turbines for offshore applications
- Prediction and analysis of fuel jettisoning
groundfall - Simulation of the aerial application of
dispersant onto oil spills - Modeling of aircraft engine exhaust products and
entrainment for high altitude aircraft applications - Devices for wind turbine vibratory load mitigation and blade protection in extreme weather
Advanced Computational Methods
- Novel toolkit for minimizing communication in HPC processes
- Octree-based mesh generation for complex surfaces
- Gaussian Balance techniques for assessing fluid dynamics response
- Fast multipole methods in fluid mechanics, acoustics, and biomolecular electrostatics
Nuclear Engineering
- Modeling and analysis of valves and complex piping systems
- Flow induced vibration of jet pump components
- Debris strainers for emergency cooling water systems
- Steam line/steam dryer testing and analysis
- Test support
- Quality assurance
Biomolecular Electrostatics Modeling
- Adaptive Cartesian Grid-based solver and charge sensitivity analysis for nonlinear and size-modified Poisson-Boltzmann equation
- Modeling of solvents with non-uniform ion size
- Boundary element modeling (BEM) for linear Poisson-Boltzmann equation
- Fast multipole-accelerated solutions for BEM-based methods