David L. Marcum
MSU/NSF Engineering Research Center

P.O. 6176

Mississippi State, MS 39762

M/S 9627

Phone: (601) 323 2423

Fax: (601) 323 7692
E-mail: marcum@erc.msstate.edu

EDUCATION          EXPERIENCE              SPECIALTY
RESEARCH            PUBLICATIONS

Education

• Ph.D. (M.E.), Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 1985
• M.S.M.E., Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 1981
• B.S.M.E., Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 1978

Awards

Herrin-Hess Distinguished Professor

Experience Record

• Professor - 1991-Present, Mechanical Engineering, Mississippi State University.
• Scientist - 1987-1991, Computational Fluid Dynamics, McDonnell Douglas Corporation.
• Senior Specialist Engineer - 1985-1987, Aerodynamics Research, The Boeing Company.
• Research Associate - 1983-1985, Mechanical Engineering Department, Purdue University.
• Senior Product Engineer - 1978 - 1983, Advanced Design, TRW Ross Gear Division.

Specialty Areas

         Computational Fluid Dynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Grid Generation, Numerical Methods

Research Activities

Unstructured Grid Technology Research

Dr. Marcum has developed an established research program in unstructured grid technology for computational field simulation (CFS). This research program is an integral part of the Mississippi State University/National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Computational Field Simulation. The overall objective of this program is to improve the effectiveness and reduce the user-time required for CFS modeling of geometrically complex configurations. This is being accomplished through development of CFS tools using unstructured grid technology. Support for this research is provided by a balanced level of external funding from both industry and government agencies. Software and technology developed from the current research has been transferred to and is in use or under evaluation at several major aerospace and automotive corporations and government agencies.

Recently, a new approach to unstructured tetrahedral grid generation labeled advancing- front/local-reconnection or AFLR was developed under this research program. This procedure provides a substantial improvement in grid quality and computational efficiency. The combined quality and efficiency of AFLR is superior to all existing procedures. Since 1992 the research program has also included a well established international collaboration with Dr. Nigel Weatherill of the University of Wales, Swansea, UK. This effort has focused on procedures for improving CFD solution accuracy by adapting unstructured grids to flow field physics. For these procedures, new methods have been developed for identifying and extracting relevant physical features from a flow field. These methods are also useful for visualizing the flow field. As a result this collaboration has recently been extended to include the scientific visualization work of Dr. Moorehead at Mississippi State University. New methods based on general pattern recognition techniques are being investigated in this work for use in solution adaptation and scientific visualization.

In addition, since 1991 the research program has included substantial work on development of CFD solution algorithms for unstructured grids. The work is primarily focused on simulation of unsteady viscous flow for problems with multiple bodies in relative motion such as store or booster separation problems and for problems with maneuvering flight vehicles.

Current projects and funding sources under this program are as follows.

• Air Force Office of Scientific Research, "Computational Simulation of Unsteady, Viscous Hypersonic Flow about Flight Vehicles with Store Separation." Develop unstructured CFD algorithms for applications with store separation.