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

 Specialty Areas

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

Research Summary

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 (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.

• NASA-Langley Research Center, "Grid Generation and Numerical Solution of the Navier-Stokes Equations on Unstructured Grids." Develop unstructured grid generation and CFD technology for aerospace applications.

• Ford Motor Company, "High-Quality Unstructured Grid Generation For Automotive Applications." Develop unstructured grid generation system for automotive applications.

• Boeing Space Systems Division, "Development of Automated Unstructured Grid Technology for Launch Vehicles." Develop a comprehensive CFD system for analysis of launch vehicles.

• National Science Foundation, "CFS System Project." Develop a comprehensive CFS system for research and education that includes all elements from CAD surface definition to final solution visualization and analysis.

• National Science Foundation, "Unstructured Grid Technology Project." Develop unstructured grid generation procedures and solution-adaptation techniques for CFS applications.

Selected Recent Publications

Selected Journal Articles

Marcum, D. L., "Advancing-Front/Local-Reconnection (AFLR) Unstructured Grid Generation," Computational Fluid Dynamics Review, 1998. (INVITED)

Marcum, D. L., "Point Insertion Methods," The Handbook of Grid Generation, edited by J. F.. Thompson, B. Soni, and N. P. Weatherill, CRC Press, 1998.

Marcum, D. L., "Adaptive Unstructured Grid Generation for Viscous Flow Applications," AIAA Journal, Vol. 34, No. 11, p. 2440, 1996.

Marcum, D. L, and N. P. Weatherill, "Aerospace Applications of Solution Adaptive Finite Element Analysis," Computer-Aided Geometric Design, Vol. 12, No. 7, p. 709, 1995.

Marcum, D. L. and Weatherill, N. P., "Unstructured Grid Generation Using Iterative Point Insertion and Local Reconnection," AIAA Journal, Vol. 33, No. 9, p. 1619, 1995.

Selected Papers

Marcum, D. L. and Gaither, K. P., "Solution Adaptive Unstructured Grid Generation Using Pseudo-Pattern Recognition Techniques," AIAA-97-1860, AIAA Computational Fluid Dynamics Conference, Snowmass Village, CO, June 1997.

Marcum, D. L. and Gaither, K. P., "Solution Adaptive Unstructured Grid Generation Using Pattern Recognition Techniques," 3rd ECCOMAS Computational Fluid Dynamics Conference, Paris, France, September 1996.

Marcum, D. L., "Unstructured Grid Generation Components for Complete Systems," 5th International Conference on Numerical Grid Generation in Computational Field Simulations, Starkville, MS, April 1996.

Marcum, D. L., "Control of Point Placement and Connectivity in Unstructured Grid Generation Procedures," 9th International Conference on Finite Elements in Fluids, Venice, Italy, October 1995.

Marcum, D. L., "Generation of High-Quality Unstructured Grids for Computational Field Simulation," 6th International Symposium on Computational Fluid Dynamics, Lake Tahoe, NV, September 1995.