NuMAD v2.0

NuMAD first became available in the early 2000’s. It was originally written in Tcl, chosen for its ability to easily manipulate graphics and port information in and out of the main code. NuMAD has always been designed to output files for ANSYS. The latest release of the previous NuMAD code is dated 31 March 2010.

Beginning with the last release of the previous NuMAD, its authors realized that blade design was quickly heading in a direction where a computationally intense, and platform independent programming environment was needed for NuMAD. Mathworks MATLAB® was chosen as the environment because of its widespread use, its computational power, its flexibility in operating systems, its graphical capabilities, its popularity with researchers and students, and its ability to compile as well as to run from raw source code. The current release of NuMAD also includes some advanced capabilities which go beyond the basic connection to creation of the finite element model: tabularized input format, swept blades, blades with pre-bend, output for CFD mesh creation and output of blade cross section properties.

NuMAD v2.0 is available in two forms: 1) compiled MCR executable and 2) raw MATLAB source files. The MCR executables are in binaries.zip. Note that the MCR executables were too large to be placed in the "bin" folder of the source code. They as well as the rest of the "bin" files are in the binaries.zip asset. Thus, you can ignore the files in "bin" folder of the source code. Users are encouraged to study the raw source files to understand how NuMAD works. When there are capabilities that presently do not exist, the authors encourage users to work together with the authors to write modules that accomplish the tasks. It is the hope of the authors that the accessibility of the MATLAB source code will, in the long run, enable an extremely capable tool that will continue to enable DOE’s goals and benefit the entire wind industry.