@pipeworx/turbulence-modeling-resource

Catalog of NASA Langley's standard turbulence-model verification and validation test cases (flat plates, airfoils, jets, a backward-facing step, the wall-mounted hump, shock/boundary-layer interactions, and more), plus reference data for the cases that publish an unambiguous experimental or correlation dataset.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1851+ live data sources. This is an independent, unofficial integration — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or published by the upstream provider.

Tools

• tmr_cases(...) — the full case catalog (or one category): id, category, flow regime, documented Mach/Reynolds conditions, and whether reference data is available via tmr_reference_data.

• tmr_reference_data(...) — the reference (experimental or correlation) data for one case, where the case's own page unambiguously labels a file as the reference data rather than one of many turbulence-model CFD results.

Related MCP server: spacedata

Auth

Keyless. US government work — public domain.

Data sources

• NASA Langley Research Center, Turbulence Modeling Resource — the standard set of verification cases (checking that a turbulence model is implemented correctly) and validation cases (checking that it reproduces real flow physics) used across the turbulence-modeling community: flat plates, bumps-in-channel, 2D and 3D airfoils, axisymmetric jets, a backward-facing step, a wall-mounted hump, shock/boundary-layer interactions, a supersonic square duct, the ONERA M6 wing, and a high-Reynolds-number channel flow.

The resource moved from its original NASA-hosted address to a GitHub Pages site the publisher itself maintains; this pack reads from the current address. Mach number and Reynolds number in the case catalog are filled in only where a case's own page states them explicitly — a null means NASA's page did not give that figure, not that the flow has no such condition.

Case directories hold dozens of files each — one per turbulence model's CFD result, plus (for some cases) the actual experimental or correlation reference data the models are checked against, named and linked distinctly on the case's own page. tmr_reference_data only serves the latter kind, and only for cases where that distinction is unambiguous from the page itself; everything else stays unmapped rather than guessed at, which is why only a handful of cases report reference_data: true today. Every file follows the same plain-text, Tecplot-style convention: #-prefixed comment lines, a variables="col1","col2",... header, optional zone, t="label" sections, then whitespace-separated numeric rows — parsed generically in src/index.ts rather than per-case.

tmr_reference_data's data_as_of is the upstream file's own Last-Modified response header — never a date written into the pack at build time, which would silently go stale. fetched_at is always this call's own timestamp, so a caller still knows when Pipeworx last asked even on the rare response without a Last-Modified header. tmr_cases' catalog_transcribed is a different thing entirely: the case list and conditions are a plain array transcribed from the publisher's pages at pack-build time, not re-fetched live on every call, so it is named and dated separately rather than borrowing data_as_of's meaning.

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "turbulence-modeling-resource": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/turbulence-modeling-resource/mcp"
    }
  }
}

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/turbulence-modeling-resource/mcp returns the tools in the table above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and is the authoritative answer for a given day.

This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth, connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworx": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1851+ data sources. The only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx reaches all of them from either one.

No MCP client? Call it over HTTP

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/tmr_cases \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"category":"validation-basic"}'

No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/tmr_cases. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.

Standalone (no gateway account)

This package also runs as a local stdio MCP server — no Pipeworx account, no gateway round-trip:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "turbulence-modeling-resource": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-turbulence-modeling-resource"]
    }
  }
}

Or run it directly to confirm it starts:

npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-turbulence-modeling-resource

It speaks MCP over stdin/stdout and answers initialize/tools/list/tools/call for only this pack's tools — none of the shared meta-tools the gateway connection above adds. Same source, same tools, no ask_pipeworx routing.

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Turbulence Modeling Resource data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• Docs and guides

• pipeworx.io

License

MIT