Welcome to Crawford Technical Services

My name is David Crawford and I provide help and training for users of CTH computational shock physics software.

I have 25+ years of experience (1993-present) as an analyst and developer of CTH, 10 years as the lead developer (2003-2013) and 15+ years teaching the introductory CTH class (2003-present). Some of my notable experiences include:

  • Performing simulations of the impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter in 1994
  • In collaboration with Boeing and NASA, developing software to help calibrate the space shuttle wing leading edge impact detection system which flew on all space shuttles since the Columbia accident
  • Developing the block-based adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) capability in CTH which is widely used today (In many cases, an order of magnitude or more improvement in performance is seen.)
  • Developing the CTH heat conduction model, the data initialization capability known as DIATOM, and the graphics visualization capability known as Spymaster
  • Simulating hypervelocity impacts from laboratory scale to planetary scale
  • Authoring or co-authoring many peer-reviewed publications
  • Training more than 1,000 people to use CTH (that’s about 70 students per year)

I retired from Sandia National Laboratories in June, 2018 to dedicate myself to computational shock physics research, consulting and training. I will happily provide a CV on request.

CTH is a multi-material, large deformation, strong shock, solid mechanics code developed at Sandia National Laboratories. It is also known as a hydrocode. It has advanced material models, can perform analyses in one, two and three dimensions and can run in parallel on some of the world’s fastest computers. Please note that CTH is government-owned software. I don’t provide CTH. Please contact National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC (NTESS) for a license. CTH has been provided to Crawford Technical Services, LLC under license granted by NTESS.

CTH Training

I offer a four-day introductory training class for CTH. The next class is postponed due to the pandemic. We will schedule the next class when we believe it is safe for in-person training. Please email me if you would like to be added to my email list for future announcements.

CTH Help

Whether you are new to CTH or a seasoned veteran, I can help you improve the accuracy of your CTH analyses and achieve them more quickly.

Ready to Get Started?

Please use the form below for any questions you may have.