Simulations of transition and turbulence on the Navier-Stokes computer

The Navier-Stokes Computer (NSC) consists of multiple local memory parallel processors interconnected in a hypercube network. Efficient implementation of algorithms on the NSC thus requires the effective utilization of both the coarse and fine grain paralelism inherent in the architectural design. The basic approach to implementing an algorithm on the NSC is presented herein. The particular finite-difference algorithm considered was developed for performing transition and turbulence simulations by direct solution of the time-dependent incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. The suitability of this algorithm for performing simulations of the isotropic turbulence problem is verified from computations performed on a Cray 2. Projected timing results for the algorithm on the NSC itself are presented for both the isotropic turbulence and laminar turbulent transition problems.