CFD Then and Now
When you have 40 minutes, spend the time with CD-adapco and Chad Jackson as the latter takes a look at CFD Then and Now.
- With respect to CFD now, “meshing is almost hands free.”
- CFD that’s tightly integrated or embedded into CAD allows true design-cycle analysis or even pre-CAD simulation. [This raises the question "What comes first, the CAD or the simulation?" But really it goes back to the more fundamental issue of design as a functional vs. geometric activity.]
- “The quality of the mesh doesn’t effect the quality of the results anymore.”
- Removing many of the barriers to entry to CFD allows simulation driven design.
- Organizations who use CFD may give themselves a competitive advantage.
Screen capture from a video on CD-adapco’s website of Chad Jackson talking about CFD Simulations Then and Now
Cloud
- SolidSmack takes a look at SimScale for cloud-based engineering analysis and call it “the most complete set of simulation tools available yet.” Based on that, I went to SimScale’s website and watched some of their CFD videos. It appears they are using OpenFOAM for fluids simulations.
- Rescale has added the open source CFD code Gerris to their cloud-based software portfolio.
Applications
- Properties Magazine includes an article written by IMAGINiT on the use of CFD for ventilation performance in buildings.
- CFD provided insight into erosion of the Great Sphinx on Egypt’s Giza Plateau. (As first seen on Symscape’s blog where a low-res simulation was performed using Caedium CFD.) Purchase required for access to the full paper.
- Speaking of IMAGINiT, MarketWatch reports on their expanding CFD consulting business.
Streamlines from a CFD simulation of erosion on the Giza Plateau. Image from Science Direct.
News & Events
- The 8th International Conference on CFD will be held 24-29 July 2014 in Chengdu, China. The call for abstracts is now open with a due date of 15 December.
- Congratulations to FY Fluid Dynamics for being named to Wired magazine’s list of the best reporters, writers, and thinkers on the internet.
- On 20-25 July 2014 in Barcelona the 11th World Congress on Computational Mechanics, 5th European Conference on Computational Mechanics, and 6th European Conference on CFD will be held. The conferences include numerous mini-symposia on CFD related topics. Abstracts are due on 29 November, full papers on 28 February.
- CFD Support Ltd. has released Turbomachinery CFD, an OpenFOAM-centric suite of software and supporting materials.
- Visualizing Data presents the best of the visualization web for July 2013.
It’s All About the Mesh
- In a short video you can see a new feature for Scan & Solve in Rhino that allows mesh resolution to be visualized.
- Convergent Science says It’s All About the Mesh [and who can argue with that?] and proceeds to identify some benefits of cut-cell Cartesian grids.
- Coincidentally, Symscape also weighs in on Cartesian grids.
Cut cell Cartesian grid from Convergent Science
What is the Sound of Wet Hands Clapping?
Yuk. No one wants to know why you’re clapping your wet hands – just don’t stand too close. But many people want to know why a thin fluid film compressed between two plates becomes unstable and breaks down into jets and droplets. Think oil refining and separation.
Liquid sheet resulting from squeezing a thin fluid layer. Image from Science Daily.
