Sandia National Labs Academic Alliance Collaboration Report 2020-2021

SANDIA AND UT AUSTIN COLLABORATIONS MOVE INTO HYPERSPEED

The figure on the left shows a subset of 813 randomly selected mesh cells used by the reduced order model (ROM). The figure on the right shows a ROM solution for a hypersonic flight vehicle, which required ~1000x less CPU-time than the high-fidelity solution in the center. Sandia and UT Austin are joining together on hypersonic opportunities. Sandia, who invested $40 million in LDRD funds to explore autonomy and machine learning technology for hypersonic flight vehicles, provides large-scale environmental testing facilities, high-performance computing, high-energy physics laboratories, special prototyping, and limited production capabilities. UT Austin offers the tools for early stage R&D for missile components and is committed to working with the U.S. military and the Army Futures Command (headquartered in a UT Austin building) to identify and prioritize research that can be quickly adapted to help protect and defend the nation’s interest. In 2019, the entities began collaborating on a three-year project to enable high-fidelity aerothermal simulations of hypersonic vehicles with Sandia’s Patrick Blonigan as PI and Dr. Karen Willcox, director of

Pictured: The figure on the left shows a subset of 813 randomly selected mesh cells used by the ROM. The figure on the right shows a ROM solution for a hypersonic flight vehicle, which required ~1000x less CPU-time than a high-fidelity solution.

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Sandia Academic Alliance Program