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Spinoff story
Design Software Transforms How Commercial Jetliners Are Built
A real-world story of NASA technology finding a life beyond the mission.
About this technology
Overview
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software that simulates aerodynamics has been a major boon to aircraft designers. NASA funded the creation of Pegasus 5, a preprocessor that greatly decreases the work necessary to prepare a design for CFD analysis. Ames Research Center took over the program and refined it with Seattle-based Boeing Commercial Airplanes, which has used it to design a number of its airliners. Pegasus 5 opens up CFD preprocessing to less experienced users, speeds it up, and drastically reduces user error.