HPCMP CREATE (trademark)-AV Quality Assurance: Best Practices for Validating and Supporting Computation-Based Engineering Software

From the perspective of a user of computational - based engineering software, the two most relevant questions are: (1) Does this tool adequately perform the analysis I need? and (2) Does this tool adequately perform any and all advertised capabilities? This paper will describe how the HPCMP CREATE Air Vehicles (AV) project ensures positive answers to these questions through the functions performed by the Quality Assurance group. Industry quality standards will be discussed and their strengths and weaknesses within the CREATE-AV framework addressed. Work toward the verification and validation of the CREATE-AV suite of tools will be presented. The paper will conclude with Quality Assurance lessons and best practices learned over the course of an extended (7+ year) effort to field next-generation multiphysics aviation design tools to the DoD community. To be published in Computing in Science and Engineering, v18 n1 p1-13, Jan/Feb 2016. The original document contains color images.