Abstract
Complicated dynamic phenomena as occurred in high velocity impact processes were studied using a numerical approach. A transient nonlinear finite element program was used to model and simulate the impact events. The use of supercomputers was required in these simulations due to the size of the problem and the duration of the events. Techniques designed to visualize 3D geometry as well as scientific data were developed to help researchers make sense out of the tremendous amount of data generated by the supercomputers. Resulting animation sequences provided a means to the researchers to study these dynamic processes. A newly developed technique called data sonification was also exploited to provide an additional medium to display scientific data. This is accomplished by mapping various parameters of the dataset to various parameters of sound. Two complex 3D numerical examples were used to demonstrate both visual and sonic techniques.
