HPCMP CREATE™-AV Kestrel: Recent Improvements and Upcoming Changes
Kestrel is a high-fidelity, multidisciplinary simulation tool in the HPCMP CREATE(TM) program that was designed to meet the current and evolving needs of the U.S. DoD’s fixed-wing air vehicle acquisition community.  It can operate in regimes spanning from low Mach number incompressible flows seen by small unmanned aerial vehicles up to high Mach number compressible flows seen by hypersonic vehicles.  It couples multiple disciplines including aerodynamics, thermochemistry, structures, propulsion, rigid-body motion, and multi-body motion in order to simulate many relevant scenarios including store separation, cargo and troop deployment, formation maneuvers, aerial refueling, and take-off and landing to and from both ground- and sea-based runways.  It provides a robust and accurate capability and is being used extensively by the Air Force, Army, and Navy, as well as by other government and industry organizations within the DoD acquisition community.

This talk presents a summary of key production features added to Kestrel in FY25 as well as some upcoming capabilities that are currently in development.  These include improvements to the accuracy and convergence characteristics of Kestrel’s primary flow solver, new capabilities in Kestrel’s six degree-of-freedom prediction solver, the new capability to predict ice accumulation on the vehicle, and other multidisciplinary improvements relevant to simulating hypersonic vehicles.
IMPACT
Accomplishment: Improved accuracy of CFD simulations and added ability to predict icing formation on aircraft; Result:  DoD fixed-wing air vehicle acquisition community can achieve better results on hypersonic simulations, and can predict the reduced performance of an aircraft due to ice formation.
PRESENTER
Lamberson, Steven
steven.e.lamberson2.ctr@mail.mil
850-902-1951
HPCMP CREATE
CATEGORY
Comp Fluid Dynamics
SECONDARY CATEGORY
Mod, Sim & Analysis for Decision Making
SYSTEM(S) USED
narwhal, nautilus, carpenter