Multiphysical Computations in Fluid Dynamics and Electromagnetics

There has been a phenomenal growth in the use of multi-disciplinary computations in technology intensive areas of engineering in recent times. Interaction between fluid flow and electromagnetic fields appears in nuclear engineering, semiconductor processing, metallurgy and is a dominant mechanism in astrophysical gas dynamics. Applications in aeronautics have regained prominence since the early 90s, in studies of magneto-plasmadynamic propulsion, hypersonic shock wave control, plasma enhanced combustion, boundary layer control, and electromagnetic wave propagation in ionized gases. While these concepts have been conceived several decades ago, computational tools to study them with a comprehensive set of physical models for realistic conditions and complex geometry are only becoming available in the present time. There is growing confidence in the accuracy of these computations, and promise that a handful of high-impact applications of this technology will remain relevant despite inherent limitations (low conductivity of air, high recombination rate of ionized species, etc.,) for the foreseeable future. This paper summarizes ongoing research in the computation of such problems with emphasis on higher order accurate, high performance computing tools developed at HyPerComp Inc