The commercial market for our product is very large and includes plants and industrial facilities such as nuclear power generation, chemical process plants etc. Recently, commercial space ventures ranging from space transportation systems (COTS) for the international space station (ISS), to low-cost satellite launch systems are getting interested in simulation tools capable of providing risk assessment of propulsion systems. The primary market for this product will be in the design and analysis of high-performance, high-reliability systems used for inherently transient operations in the nuclear and chemical process industry. Here characterizing the transient performance of the system is a critical safety issue and the availability of a well-validated, reliable predictive software tool can play an integral role in reducing costs and managing risk. The integrated multi-level (system and component) simulation software resulting from this proposal would predict performance of liquid rocket propulsion systems and test facilities for rocket engines. The salient features of the framework include diagnosis of system anomalies/transients and prediction of system feedback and response to the transients. Our product addresses core needs of NASA in the Constellation program, and the mission to the moon, in reliably predicting instability modes, resonance and structural vibrations in propulsion systems such as the J-2X and RS-68 engines as well as test facilities with complex networks of valves, venturis, control elements etc. The software technology developed here can also be deployed by engine health monitoring systems and/or by control algorithms that require rapid response models of systems that consist of vast array of fluid dynamic components.
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