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| SpaceX Combustion Grid Simulation Visualization |
Aircraft aerodynamics & Autopilot
Aerodynamic CFD creates big data that is expensive to run, on the order of 10-100 petaflop supercomputers are required to perform the necessary computation in a useful time scale.
Boeing for example uses CFD simulation to optimize wing geometry, to improve the leading edge shape, wing profile design, wing tip designs & control surfaces, the shape of the fuselage & its partitions, as well as structural internal frame optimization. The goal is to use less materials for lower weight in the most intelligent way to get the most strength & enduring performance with the least amount of material. This translates in huge fuel savings for the end customer, improved control performance for the pilots and lower warranty service claims against the manufacturer.
In a similar way that CFD helps aircraft designers, the designers of cars, trucks & trains also used CFD for reducing aerodynamic drag & turbulence, which enables greater performance with less fuel & lower emissions. Since most of my blog readers are car drivers, consider the way that automakers are using special wheel designs, underbody panels and functional small upper rear roof spoilers & side view mirror drafting & cross section minimization to enhance downforce at highway speeds without increasing drag. The goals are maximizing safety of the design with intelligently CAE designed crash impact structures. Improvements to the cabin safety cell protects the driver & passengers from crash impact damage, rollovers and other types of collisions. At the most advanced level information technology integration is taking the driver out of direct control and replacing the role of human drivers with ongoing self driving improvements, first with advanced driver safety assistance technology, but then with L2, L3,L4 & L5 Autonomy autopilot development & commercialization.
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| Tesla Autopilot 2.0 upgrade 2017 |
A modern gas powered vehicle contains up to 100 onboard computers, mostly lower fanless units with embedded linux based or custom operating systems (super light & optimized) to control ABS, Air Bag Deployment, engine control, dynamic vehicle stability control, traction control, rear view camera systems & autopilot systems in the Tesla Model S and other newer luxury vehicles.
Automakers are combining Lidar, Radar, Sonar & machine vision digital imaging using multiple small imagine sensors like the ones present in smartphone for video & photography. Complex digital maps & the big data of Google Street View, even Apple is working on self driving car technology.
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| NVIDIA Drive Autopilot Computer Platforms 2017 |
Similarly Microsoft & NVidia are working with automakers for autopilot developments. As electrification intensifies in every new model, more power becomes available for more computer intelligence.
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| 2017 Toyota Rav4 Hybrid "Birds Eye View" |
Consider the image fusion happening in Birds Eye parking view systems. Even simple backup cameras require more information technology integration, cameras, cabling, power, computers, screens & software. Lane keep assist and adaptive cruise control similarly benefit from more infromation technology integration into vehicles. Forward collision warning, lane departure warning, collision mitigation, automatic emergency braking, pedestrian detection, etc. There are many new information technology based safety features being offered by automakers on affordable cars like the 2018 Honda Fit & Honda Accord Hybrid!
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| Typical Automotive ECU |
Historical Complexity
The computational legacy of vehicles extends to more hidden features. Consider the long legacy of electronic engine controls, electronic fuel injection & sensor enhanced emissions technology. Safety enhancing vehicle stability control, electronic traction control, antilock braking and electronic brake force distribution, occupant classification, variable airbag deployment, and the long tradition of integrating information science into vehicle platforms.
Modern cars are made of more than 30,000 parts, assembled into thousands of functional parts & structures, into dozens of groups that are married together during final assembly. Computer aided design CAD: CAE :CFD care also enhancing production efficiency, improving final assembly quality control, making durable quality vehicles with tighter tolerances that hold up well over time. At the manufacturing scale more intelligence reduce waste, improves recycling, saves electrical power & lowers chemical emissions (especially in the paint shop).
Gasoline Direct Injection was only possible in highly electrically controlled engine platforms because of the complex timing control needed to directly inject gasoline into the cylinders, while optimizing valve control timing & ignition over all the different engine speeds, load conditions, and operating conditions of ambient temperature & humidity. Cold startup was a tough challenge with GDI, because the injection, valve control, ignition timing, and pulse width constantly change as the engine heats, and the ECU must produce a custom control map for different ambient operating conditions if the engine is frozen solid sub zero vs when the vehicle is parked in 100 deg F weather in direct sun. GDI enables cleaner idle and better emissions under low load states, while stratified charges are also possible with GDI, resulting in better fuel economy and lower emissions.
Next generation HCCI or homogenous charge compression ignition engines make use of gasoline in an engine that compresses the fuel to cause ignition, similar to that of a diesel engine. HCCI enables super low NOX emissions without a catalytic converter, but requires extremely precise microprocessor controller ECU operation to work. Unburned fuel & carbon monoxide are still emissions problems that must be dealt with using emissions controls on HCCI engines. 30% better fuel economy, lower peak temperatures, enhance engine life, reduced vibration, cleaner emissions, with better throttle response!
Seeing Inside
You cannot CT scan or MRI an engine easily to optimize combustion on the fly, though automakers have been able to improve swirl mix, injection atomization, valve attenuation, ignition timing, stoichiometry & emissions controls using all manner of glass engine camera setups & pre-computation super computer modeling, smoke & light wind tunnel testing & other pre_CFD techniques for classic optimization and innovation.
The Cleaning Power of Information Technology, the power of electrons & light and our brain interacting with machines, machines becoming more like our brains! When we use computers we are
Hybridizing our human minds with the information furniture our pockets, that smartphone that tries to be everything to everyone ^^
Aerodynamics & Fluid flow
Air is a gas with density that become important to consider the faster you are moving. Consider the swinging of a tennis racket ripping through the air, or the fuzzy tennis ball hurling across the court. Golf clubs optimized swinging at increasingly novel golf balls for that perfect slice. Reducing friction in bearings in anything that moves even fidget spinners, passenger vehicles, trucks & trains & moving through the air with less resistance for enhance performance & lower emissions. Applying more intelligence to aerodynamics creates better products.
Modern cars are made of more than 30,000 parts, assembled into thousands of functional parts & structures, into dozens of groups that are married together during final assembly. Computer aided design CAD: CAE :CFD care also enhancing production efficiency, improving final assembly quality control, making durable quality vehicles with tighter tolerances that hold up well over time. At the manufacturing scale more intelligence reduce waste, improves recycling, saves electrical power & lowers chemical emissions (especially in the paint shop).
GDI
Gasoline Direct Injection was only possible in highly electrically controlled engine platforms because of the complex timing control needed to directly inject gasoline into the cylinders, while optimizing valve control timing & ignition over all the different engine speeds, load conditions, and operating conditions of ambient temperature & humidity. Cold startup was a tough challenge with GDI, because the injection, valve control, ignition timing, and pulse width constantly change as the engine heats, and the ECU must produce a custom control map for different ambient operating conditions if the engine is frozen solid sub zero vs when the vehicle is parked in 100 deg F weather in direct sun. GDI enables cleaner idle and better emissions under low load states, while stratified charges are also possible with GDI, resulting in better fuel economy and lower emissions.
HCCI
Next generation HCCI or homogenous charge compression ignition engines make use of gasoline in an engine that compresses the fuel to cause ignition, similar to that of a diesel engine. HCCI enables super low NOX emissions without a catalytic converter, but requires extremely precise microprocessor controller ECU operation to work. Unburned fuel & carbon monoxide are still emissions problems that must be dealt with using emissions controls on HCCI engines. 30% better fuel economy, lower peak temperatures, enhance engine life, reduced vibration, cleaner emissions, with better throttle response!
Seeing Inside
You cannot CT scan or MRI an engine easily to optimize combustion on the fly, though automakers have been able to improve swirl mix, injection atomization, valve attenuation, ignition timing, stoichiometry & emissions controls using all manner of glass engine camera setups & pre-computation super computer modeling, smoke & light wind tunnel testing & other pre_CFD techniques for classic optimization and innovation.
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| SpaceX Rocket Mach Number Simulation |
Combustion Optimization for Space Access
Rocket engines are harsh, loud, vibrating beasts of power that operate at incredible levels of energy for short intervals of time. Trying to optimize combustion inside the rocket engine with CFD proved widely perplexing, relying on expensive brute force many attempt based trial and error optimization that wastes time, money & creates lots of noxious emissions.
Rocket engines are harsh, loud, vibrating beasts of power that operate at incredible levels of energy for short intervals of time. Trying to optimize combustion inside the rocket engine with CFD proved widely perplexing, relying on expensive brute force many attempt based trial and error optimization that wastes time, money & creates lots of noxious emissions.
The Cleaning Power of Information Technology, the power of electrons & light and our brain interacting with machines, machines becoming more like our brains! When we use computers we are
Hybridizing our human minds with the information furniture our pockets, that smartphone that tries to be everything to everyone ^^
Aerodynamics & Fluid flow
Air is a gas with density that become important to consider the faster you are moving. Consider the swinging of a tennis racket ripping through the air, or the fuzzy tennis ball hurling across the court. Golf clubs optimized swinging at increasingly novel golf balls for that perfect slice. Reducing friction in bearings in anything that moves even fidget spinners, passenger vehicles, trucks & trains & moving through the air with less resistance for enhance performance & lower emissions. Applying more intelligence to aerodynamics creates better products.
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| 2016 Mazda Miata GT |
Resonance & Harmonics
The cabin, the vehicle atmosphere, the cabin soundscape & air quality, comfort and ride quality, noise isolation, peace & tranquility, the feel of being in a given vehicle design. Some people like the vague disconnected feeling of something with heavily power assisted steering that your can articulate with a single finger easily.
Others want heavy connected steering that lets you feel the road in your hands. Computer aided engineering heavily influences the seats and the layout of controls & the user interface. Vehicle dynamics & control, performance, emotion & movement, the automakers are trying to put more life in your years allowing you to cover vast distances instantly at a moment's notice with their vehicles so that you can emotionally connect to buying another one in the future!
Consider the Mazda Miata. More than a Million produced. One of the most fun cars you could possibly drive. It only has about half the power of a Subaru WRX, but it also weights about 1000 lbs less, meaning a nimble pure zoom zoom driving experience that puts smiles for miles & more!
Consider the Mazda Miata. More than a Million produced. One of the most fun cars you could possibly drive. It only has about half the power of a Subaru WRX, but it also weights about 1000 lbs less, meaning a nimble pure zoom zoom driving experience that puts smiles for miles & more!
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Palouse Falls Canyon on the Snake River Eastern Washington : iPhone SE Stitch Image by Aaron Kenneth SchwarzYou might be wondering what is with the landscape photo in this posting? Look at the bigger picture of you on the surface of the earth! We are each small fragile & temporary beings, while no one has all the answers, and we are all stuck down here on earth together, like it or not! We actually drove our 1993 Subaru Legacy L to this park where I captured this image! A small part of a 655.5 mi road trip! |
Extension
Science and engineering are all about creating organization from chaos & the stochastic random phenomenon all around use. Intelligently designed products of human synthetic design become the
Apple of the eye. When we look upon something & appreciate it, to like it or want it, that work of magic happening in your brain allows you to evaluate something. You can see and feel the improvements in each new generation of smartphone through the OS and APPS, the combined functionality the product originating from a long hardware history of miniaturizing ballroom sized computers of the 1960's into tiny monoliths of rectangular information superlatives in every new generation of smaller information furniture that you carry in your bags, pockets & purses.
Science and engineering are all about creating organization from chaos & the stochastic random phenomenon all around use. Intelligently designed products of human synthetic design become the
Apple of the eye. When we look upon something & appreciate it, to like it or want it, that work of magic happening in your brain allows you to evaluate something. You can see and feel the improvements in each new generation of smartphone through the OS and APPS, the combined functionality the product originating from a long hardware history of miniaturizing ballroom sized computers of the 1960's into tiny monoliths of rectangular information superlatives in every new generation of smaller information furniture that you carry in your bags, pockets & purses.
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| 2010 Toyota Prius III : ~50MPG on Regular Pump Gas |
Better is Better
Improved combustion by any means translates into lower emissions & improved air quality +more power & fun! Adding more intelligence to the world will only increase innovations. Have you ever interacted with a product or vehicle and wondered if it was designed by thinking people? There are examples of thoughtlessness present everywhere in the world, with crime, corruption & other preventable problems. Well designed products prove themselves with intuitive usability & reliability that never leaves you stranded or stuck without a good forewarning. Our Subaru's ancient automatic transmission is starting to act up, giving ample indication that it is wearing out. No one can tell me how long it will go.
Improved combustion by any means translates into lower emissions & improved air quality +more power & fun! Adding more intelligence to the world will only increase innovations. Have you ever interacted with a product or vehicle and wondered if it was designed by thinking people? There are examples of thoughtlessness present everywhere in the world, with crime, corruption & other preventable problems. Well designed products prove themselves with intuitive usability & reliability that never leaves you stranded or stuck without a good forewarning. Our Subaru's ancient automatic transmission is starting to act up, giving ample indication that it is wearing out. No one can tell me how long it will go.
Each machine is unique, not only in its construction, but also in what it was exposed to throughout its life. Some cars last longer than others, even if they are the same make model and year. Random quirks and glitches in manufacturing sometimes give rise to a lemon, other times they pump out a car that goes 5x further than all the others. Life is like a box of chocolates, an unfair game, unpredictable, you never know what you are going to get. So squeeze those lemons into lemonade and sugar lightly, try to enjoy the tart sour flavors, the subtle face squeezing acidic tartness of the lemon juice. The architecture of how people are connected makes all the difference! Be that through their car tires to the road or with their words and actions to each other. Keep on thinking about it!
The Saga of Japanese Automakers
In the history of automobiles the Japanese manufacturers set out of the 1960 with a goal to build cars that contained 2/3 fewer defects than those produced by American or German automakers, using half the factory space, half the capital expenditure, and half the engineering time. Using a system on ongoing refinement & optimization, something magical happened between the humble Nickel Metal Hydride Battery & Toyota, what went on to become know the world over as Hybrid Synergy Drive, a combination of rechargeable batteries, electric motors, an efficient small gasoline engine & a CVT orbital gearing transmission that could mix the energy from the gas motor * two electric motor generators, therein creating the Prius family of vehicle that launched in Japan in 1997! It was Honda with the original Honda Insight in 1999 that brought hybrids to America.
Today the electromotive revolution is well underway. Battery energy technology emerging atop a mountain of research & development done to commercialize higher energy density fuel cell technology, the mass manufacturing of batteries for consumer electronics paved the way for electric vehicle technology that enabled lithium ion technology to form the energy storage system in the Nissan Leaf, now more than 300,000 Nissan Leafs have been sold worldwide!
Toyota is developing solid state lithium & sodium ion battery technology that is fireproof, fade resistant, that can charge at high rates without damage, carefully holding this technology back for a specific timing launch sometime during the next 10 years. Nissan just updated their best selling electric car of all time, namely the Nissan Leaf in its 2018 model year with a larger battery, 37% more horsepower & 33% more torque, giving better performance & longer single charge range!
American & German Automakers E-Forward Too
Tesla announced plans to release an electric semi-truck to revolutionize the land based logistics sector. BMW announced heavy model lineup electrification such that of the 22 new models offered by the year 2023, 12 will be fully electric like the i3! VW announced plans to completely phase out diesel engines from its vehicles, moving to fully electric models with gasoline range extenders. Speaking of range extenders, a 2012 Chevy Volt just achieve more than 400,000 miles of operation, 141,795 of which were fully electric : remarkably the battery in this GM Volt only lost a tiny amount of its original storage capacity, now able to store 9.2 kWh of the original 9.7 kWh.
Fully Electric Cars
The entire automotive sector will undergo extensive electrification over the next 20 years. Widely speculated that the 2030's will be dominated by electric vehicle sales, an era where ICE engines will be relegated to range extender modes. BMW claims that some of its 2025 model year BEV's will be able to go more up to 485 miles per charge.
Electric Vtol Autopilot Future
The really exciting part of electric transportation can be seen in platforms beyond 4 wheel cars. Inspired by helicopters & drones, vehicles like the Ehang 184 will capture the sizzle of future vehicle buyer interests tired of sitting in traffic congestion.
The Saga of Japanese Automakers
In the history of automobiles the Japanese manufacturers set out of the 1960 with a goal to build cars that contained 2/3 fewer defects than those produced by American or German automakers, using half the factory space, half the capital expenditure, and half the engineering time. Using a system on ongoing refinement & optimization, something magical happened between the humble Nickel Metal Hydride Battery & Toyota, what went on to become know the world over as Hybrid Synergy Drive, a combination of rechargeable batteries, electric motors, an efficient small gasoline engine & a CVT orbital gearing transmission that could mix the energy from the gas motor * two electric motor generators, therein creating the Prius family of vehicle that launched in Japan in 1997! It was Honda with the original Honda Insight in 1999 that brought hybrids to America.
Today the electromotive revolution is well underway. Battery energy technology emerging atop a mountain of research & development done to commercialize higher energy density fuel cell technology, the mass manufacturing of batteries for consumer electronics paved the way for electric vehicle technology that enabled lithium ion technology to form the energy storage system in the Nissan Leaf, now more than 300,000 Nissan Leafs have been sold worldwide!
Toyota is developing solid state lithium & sodium ion battery technology that is fireproof, fade resistant, that can charge at high rates without damage, carefully holding this technology back for a specific timing launch sometime during the next 10 years. Nissan just updated their best selling electric car of all time, namely the Nissan Leaf in its 2018 model year with a larger battery, 37% more horsepower & 33% more torque, giving better performance & longer single charge range!
American & German Automakers E-Forward Too
Tesla announced plans to release an electric semi-truck to revolutionize the land based logistics sector. BMW announced heavy model lineup electrification such that of the 22 new models offered by the year 2023, 12 will be fully electric like the i3! VW announced plans to completely phase out diesel engines from its vehicles, moving to fully electric models with gasoline range extenders. Speaking of range extenders, a 2012 Chevy Volt just achieve more than 400,000 miles of operation, 141,795 of which were fully electric : remarkably the battery in this GM Volt only lost a tiny amount of its original storage capacity, now able to store 9.2 kWh of the original 9.7 kWh.
Fully Electric Cars
The entire automotive sector will undergo extensive electrification over the next 20 years. Widely speculated that the 2030's will be dominated by electric vehicle sales, an era where ICE engines will be relegated to range extender modes. BMW claims that some of its 2025 model year BEV's will be able to go more up to 485 miles per charge.
Electric Vtol Autopilot Future
The really exciting part of electric transportation can be seen in platforms beyond 4 wheel cars. Inspired by helicopters & drones, vehicles like the Ehang 184 will capture the sizzle of future vehicle buyer interests tired of sitting in traffic congestion.
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