Case Study: NASA visualizes Columbia debris simulations with Tecplot 360

NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division - Customer Case Study

NASA’s Advanced Supercomputing Division at NASA Ames used Tecplot 360 to help analyze the Columbia shuttle debris investigation. The team needed a way to visualize complex Cart3D CFD simulations of foam debris trajectories and compare results from many large-scale runs to better understand the accident scenario.

Using Tecplot 360, NASA combined simulation snapshots, colored surface-pressure data, and trajectory views into clear visualizations for the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Tecplot’s plotting and macro automation supported hundreds of Cart3D simulations run on NASA Ames’ 1024-CPU SGI Origin 3000, with about 400 simulations completed between February and May 2003, and the resulting images were used in the CAIB final report.

NASA

Michael J. Aftosmis

NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division