Business
- If you’re interested in the state of the Russian MCAD market, a bilingual research paper is available from Ralph Grabowski, editor of upFront.eZine.
- Two perspicuous posts from MonicaSchnitger:
- Exa had a good Q4 rounding out a good 2014. Revenue was up 12% to $54.5 million of which $44.6 million was license revenue (up 8%). The forecast for 2015 includes double-digit license growth. Regarding the needs of their automotive customers Exa stated “regulatory changes are forcing them to get more accurate, more realistic simulation capabilities.” [Because Exa is, to my knowledge, the only publicly traded, purely CFD company, we should all be interested.]
- Materialise, the company behind the Magics software for CAD-STL conversions and manipulations, is preparing apparently for an IPO. Their 2013 sales totaled 68.7 million euros, a 16% increase relative to the prior year. [Because 3D printing is so closely coupled to meshing, I'm interested.]
- It was announced that NUMECA is now an official supplier to Oracle Team USA for the America’s Cup.
- Metacomp Technologies’ CFD++ software will now be distributed in the UK by CFD Technologies. [Disclosure: CFD Technologies also distributes Pointwise.]
This image from Sail World relates to Oracle Team USA’s use of NUMECA.
Meshing and Other Stuff
- Desktop Engineering asked the question “How can novice users determine whether the mesh model is good enough?” In their article Meshed up or Messed up? you can read several opinions. [Disclosure: One of those opinions is mine.]
- Convergent Science announced that their CONVERGE User Group Meeting 2014 will be held in Madison, WI on 23-25 September.
- AeroDynamic Solutions published the March 2014 issue of The Flow, their newsletter for turbomachinery designers.
This tweet from #SimulationFriday made the art lover in me very happy. I cannot find the original image source. (If you’re on Twitter you need to follow the #SimulationFriday hashtag.)
Applications
- This season’s rule changes in Formula 1 have challenged car designers to do more with less. Here’s a video from Ferrari about aerodynamics and CFD.
- The naval architects at Robert Allan Ltd. have expanded their CFD capabilities.
- From ENGINEERING.com comes this CFD study using STAR-CCM+ of pipe erosion caused by particle impingement.
- From CFD Apps comes this slide deck with tips on conducting an aerodynamic vehicle study.
- The University of New South Wales uses Fluent to improve the aerodynamics of their vehicle for the World Solar Challenge.
Fluent CFD simulation of a crosswind situation for the Sunswift entry in the World Solar Challenge. Image from the Leap CFD blog.
Software
- Design World delves into the question of whether direct or feature-based modeling is better for preparing CAD for simulation. Direct modeling seems to have an edge.
- Beta CAE released ANSA and μETA v14.2.4.
- Altair announced that Version 12 of Altair HyperWorks Free Student Edition will include AcuSolve for CFD.
In Any Other Carafe Would Tap Water Taste the Same?
In order to encourage the consumption of tap (as opposed to bottled) water it was decided to emphasize the quality of water through the design of glass carafes. This project, named Transparente, combines fluid properties (altitude, temperature, hardness, conductivity, pH), Italian artistic flair, and plenty of geometric design using Rhino.
Transparente: glass carafes sculpted to represent water quality. Image from the MecSoft blog.
