4.3. Cart3D Documentation for pyCart

Some independent documentation for Cart3D is provided here; it is written from the perspective of pyCart and Cape and closely follows the cape.pycart module.

Note the two following locations for stand-alone Cart3D documentation. The second link requires entering some basic information but is free. These were most recently accessed on April 19, 2016.

• http://people.nas.nasa.gov/~aftosmis/cart3d/

This documentation is really about the Cart3D input and output files and the Cart3D binaries. All or most of the content is discussed in the context of pyCart and how the two software suites work together. Many of the details are made theoretically invisible to users of pyCart, but having a reference is useful when problems or difficult scenarios arise.

The following table describes input files to Cart3D.

File	Description and Type
input.cntl	General flow solver input file, sets Mach number, angle of attack, solver inputs, line sensors, etc.
Config.xml	Surface component naming file
Components.i.tri	Surface triangulation
preSpec.c3d.cntl	Customizes volume mesh (input to cubes)
aero.csh	(Only for adaptive runs) adaptive inputs and run script; executable

There are some other files that are inputs to the flow solver flowCart but are usually created by initialization files.

File	Description and Type
input.c3d	Contains mesh domain boundary
Mesh.c3d.Info	History of modifications to volume mesh
Mesh.mg.c3d	Mesh file with multigrid levels

Typical output files are given below. Some of these file names are slightly different

File	Description and Type
Components.i.triq	Surface triangulation with solution state
Components.i.plt	Surface solution Tecplot file
Components.i.dat	ASCII surface solution Tecplot file
cutPlanes.plt	Tecplot file for cut planes of solution
loadsCC.dat	Summary of forces and moments on each component; not used by pyCart
$COMP.dat	Iterative force/moment history for component named COMP
check.%05i	Cart3D restart file