Numerical Propulsion System Simulation
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| Numerical Propulsion System Simulation | |
|---|---|
| Developers | NASA Glenn Research Center; NPSS Consortium |
| Initial release | 1995 |
| Stable release | 3.3
|
| Written in | C++ |
| Type | Engineering simulation software |
| License | Proprietary export controlled |
| Website | swri.org/numerical-propulsion-system-simulation-npss |
Numerical Propulsion System Simulation (NPSS) is an object-oriented, thermodynamic modeling and simulation environment used for the analysis of propulsion, power, and thermal fluid systems. It is used in the aerospace industry for modeling turbomachinery, airbreathing propulsion systems, and liquid rocket engines.[1][2]
Software distribution and consortium
NPSS originated as a NASA effort to reduce the cost and development time associated with hardware testing of advanced propulsion systems, specifically in the early stages of the design process as a way to assess operational problems that are difficult to reproduce experimentally.[3] It was intended to serve as a modular and extensible framework for integrating multicomponent and multidisciplinary analysis tools across distributed computing resources.[4]
Although initially developed by NASA Lewis Research Center in the 1990s, it evolved into a cooperative effort between NASA, other U.S. government agencies, industry, and academia, with the goal of combining propulsion technologies with high-performance computing.[4] The Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) took over management and distribution of NPSS, on behalf of the NPSS Consortium, in 2013 so that members could continue developing it for industrial needs.[5] The software is export controlled, and NPSS license sales are restricted to countries not on the U.S. Department of Commerce Anti-Terrorism watch list.[6]