Sole Source Justification_Hexpress_redacted.pdf

SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION FOR SIMPLIFIED ACQUISITIONS

From:

To: Simplified Acquisition Branch (SAP)

Subj: SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION FOR HEXPRESS

1. DESCRIPTION OF REQUIRED SUPPLIES/SERVICES, ESTIMATED VALUE, AND

DELIVERY REQUIREMENTS

NSWCCD is requesting to purchase the annual maintenance renewal for HEXPRESS software. The period of performance of this maintenance support is from August 31, 2021 through August 31, 2022 with additional request for 3 option years. This service is for existing software that has been in use by Code 851 engineer at NSWCCD for more than 6 years. The part number of this software is AM- XHA-PL. The previous contract number for this requirement is: N00167-20-P0250.

HEXPRESS is an automatic, hex-dominant grid generation software package for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis. HEXPRESS generates non-conformal body-fitted full hexahedral unstructured meshes on complex arbitrary geometries. HEXPRESS automatically generates a high quality, body-fitted grid with nested (octree) mesh refinements that is ready to be used by CFD solvers such as NavyFOAM/OpenFOAM and FLUENT.

The US Distributor of HEXPRESS is:

NUMECA U.S.A., Inc. (recently acquired by Cadence Design System) 1044 Larkin Street San Francisco, CA 94109

Numeca is the sole manufacture of the software and they have no other authorized retailers or re-sellers.

The requested purchase order (PO) covers a one-year floating license for base year, with the cost of for two licenses. The cost for three option years are as follows:

1.1)Renewal 2022-2023 1.2)Renewal 2023-2024 - 1.3)Renewal 2024-2025 -

Current license is expiring on August 31, therefor the preferred delivery date is September 1, 2021. Once the PO is awarded, the software can be obtained within 7 days.

2. SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION FOR BRAND NAME BASED ON

CONTRACTOR'S UNIQUE QUALIFICATIONS OR NATURE OF THE ACQUISITION

Being a pre-processing step in all CFD simulations, meshing is regarded as a major bottleneck in CFD simulation. Meshing is a tedious, labor-intensive, and time consuming process for Navy applications involving complex geometries. Based on our experience, more than 80% of the total cost of a CFD project can easily come from meshing mostly via human time. Timely delivery of CFD simulations critically hinge upon the speed to generate high-quality meshes. That is why we are seeking to purchase

HEXPRESS, since from our previous experiences, meshes with predominantly hexahedral elements give higher quality solutions. HEXPRESS can support our needs for hexahedral meshes. Below are some of HEXPRESS’s attributes that are critical to our grid generation needs:

1. Specifically developed for marine applications, with the primary focus on gridding ship geometries.

2. Hex-dominant grid generation capability based on an octree-based technology that is currently unavailable in other commercial meshing software packages

3. Fully automated, which reduces manpower and cost

4. Ability to generate local refinement using hanging nodes which is desirable to improve numerical resolution with feasible global cell count

5. Ability to include the required anisotropy along the free surface to capture the bow wave and the waves along the side of the ship

6. Ability to generate viscous layers that ensures correct resistance predictions

7. Has scripting capabilities based on Python with the ability to run on multiple CPUs, which can be linked to our CFD solver NavyFOAM. NavyFOAM is our in-house CFD solver funded by the DOD HPC CREATE Program.

Given the number of distinct ship classes needed for CFD simulations, the automatic gridding capability of HEXPRESS along with its other unique features will allow Code 851 to drastically reduce meshing time and significantly increase the speed of the CFD simulation processes to support various Navy Acquisition and R&D Programs. Below are some of the programs that HEXPRESS will impact.

The hydrodynamic aspect of the next generation of surface ships requires high fidelity maneuvering and seakeeping predictions of a large number of ship designs in a relatively short amount of time. The numerical simulations are required to inform naval architects and ship designers of design flaws before they proceed in constructing a model for tow tank testing. Given the short deadlines at the early stage design phase, CFD is critical to provide the necessary information to make informative design decisions, thus a robust unstructured gridding package is required. The DDGx with the similar nature of computations could greatly benefit from a quick gridding process that HEXPESS can provide.

NSWCCD unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) programs will also take advantage of the meshing capabilities in HEXPRESS to simulate a variety of design configurations to obtain the maneuvering coefficients. CFD simulations are required to detect and remediate any design flaws before the vehicle is manufactured and tested out as sea. In order to meet the upcoming project deadlines, we must continue to use HEXPRESS as the meshing software.

It is our conclusion that HEXPRESS is the only meshing software package that can meet the tight schedule and the highly demanding grid quality requirements.

3. MARKET SURVEY

A market research was conducted examining other meshing software programs to determine if they meet the minimum requirements. No other meshing software has all the capabilities and features needed to meet the project deadlines. Below is a list of 2 meshing software packages available in the market.

1. BoxerMesh by Cambridge Solution: : Cannot produce the required anisotropy along the free surface. Does not have octree-based technology which results in the high cell count resulting in a slower runtime for NavyFOAM, which can impact project deadlines.

2.

2. GridPro by Program Development Company: : More expensive than

HEXPRESS. Steep learning curve. No octree-based technology.

Procuring one of the above software packages would cost per license ( for 2 licenses, which are needed to deliver projects on a timely manner) more plus an additional for training. On average, it takes about 6 to 8 months for someone to become proficient on a meshing software costing around $ . Our recent usage of HEXPRESS showed that it can reduce meshing time when compared against other traditional gridding software packages. For a typically appended ship, it takes one man-week to grid as opposed to up to 3.5 months with alternative meshing software. What makes HEXPRESS easy to learn is its simplicity and its automated nature. For someone that has gridding experience, it would take a week to understand the basic work flow of HEXPRESS and grid a relatively complex geometry eg. barehull surface ship. Other gridding packages tend to be more complicated and have many features that require user interaction (user inputs and mouse clicking). It can easily take 1-2 months to understand only the basic features in other gridding softwares. There are also other factors such as missing project milestones which can significantly impact the fleet. For these reasons, purchasing different software would create undue financial and labor on the U.S. Navy, and NSWCCD.

4. ADDITIONAL FACTS

The software procurement has proven beneficial for problems arising within the Fleet -- either through accident or tempalt -- and a supporting calculation needs to be performed for immediate analysis.

This ability has been particularly useful for supporting data requests from technical warrant holders, program offices, and NAVSEA. HEXPRESS is the only tools on the market that can produce relatively accurate results on short-notice, high-priority data requests. HEXPRESS will also dramatically cut down the cost and the time-to-solution for several other acquisition programs such as the Next Generation Frigate FFG(x) design program, Columbia Class Submarine acquisition program, the DDG-1000 program, the Naval Innovative Science Engineering (NISE) program, the Large Surface Combatant (LSC), the Navy Biofouling Control Program, Independent Applied Research (IAR) and In-house Laboratory Independent Research (ILIR) Programs.

Without HEXPRESS, the tight deadlines imposed by acquisition projects could not have been met for FYl 6-FY20, which would have resulted in schedule delays. For this reason, it is critical to renew the HEXPRESS license agreement to keep supporting the Fleet and continue to provide program officers with accurate data.

5. CUSTOMER SIGNATURE

I certify that the statements and information provided above, are complete and correct to the best of my knowledge. I understand that the processing of this sole source justification precludes the use of full and open competition.