High Performance Scaleable Software
       SIMBA: Simulation Manager and Builder for Analysts

A weapon model of a system like the B83 is typically built in a hierarchical fashion with contributions from multiple analysts.  For example at the top level a weapon model may consist of a nose, a mid-case, and a tail.  The tail, in turn, might consist of a case and four fins.  And so on.  A high-fidelity weapon model might have a hundred or more such parts.

Associated with each of these parts are numbering and naming schemes for finite element entities such as nodes, elements, surfaces, boundary sets, and material regions. To properly aggregate these parts into a coherent model, numbering and naming conventions must be mutually agreed on and rigidly followed. Currently, these conventions and schemes are maintained ad hoc in notebooks, spreadsheets, and people's heads.

The SIMBA workspace allows simulation models to be easily constructed and managed.  One goal (popular with the analysts) is the automation of many necessary but tedious bookkeeping tasks, leaving the analyst free to concentrate on the engineering features of the model. SIMBA provides symbolic names for underlying numeric identifiers, a convenient drag & drop interface for model assembly, and visualization tools for checking proper assembly, greatly lowering the barrier for simulation model construction.

In its workspace, SIMBA retains the provenance of the originally imported part models, various modeling alternatives considered, and descriptive comments provided by the analyst during construction.  The total "model in context" is persisted as a collection of XML documents, and is appropriate for archival, reuse, or sharing.

Customers:

Charlie Adams and Howard Walther (9125), B61, W80, and W87. Mike Chiesa (8727), B83. Jay Dike (8727), W80. Bruce Kistler and Vera Revelli (8727), W87.

Status:

SIMBA is under active development in 8900 as part of the ASCI DISCOM and PSE programs. The SIMBA team is currently managing the B83 baseline model for Mike Chiesa.  Charlie Adams and Howard Walther are evaluating SIMBA, as they build a SALINAS model for the W80.