COOLFluiD: An open computational platform for multi-physics simulation and research

The COOLFluiD (Computational Object Oriented Libraries for Fluid Dynamics) project, offcially started in 2002, has lead to the creation of a world-class, extremely modular col- laborative platform for high-performance scientific computing and multi-physics modeling. Target applications include Space Weather modeling, aeroacoustics, turbulence, aerother- modynamics for aerospace problems ranging from incompressible regime to hypersonics, steady and unsteady flows, etc. COOLFluiD features a unique collection of parallel nu- merical solvers for unstructured meshes, where each physical model (set of PDE's, variable transformation, aerothermochemical properties, etc.) or numerical algorithm (space dis- cretization, time discretization, coupling strategy, linear system solver interface, etc.) is enclosed in a separate module which is loaded dynamically at run-time. The paper presents a concise description about the main design strengths of the platform, an overview of cur- rent capabilities (in terms of numerical methods and physical models) and a gallery of the most challenging applications tackled so far. Particular attention is devoted to the computational modeling of aerothermodynamics and plasma flows, including atmospheric re-entry flows and numerical simulation of experiments in high-enthalpy facilities.