A Trillion Particles

Ho-hum, a billion cells is starting to sound like everyday work. The award-winning best paper from the 2013 Cray User Group described a plasma physics simulation that used over two trillion particles to study “how energetic particles are generated in magnetic reconnection.” The simulation was run on 120,000 cores of the NERSC’s Cray XE6 and generated 350 TB of data. The technical paper (PDF format) is available on the linked site.

Results of a trillion particle plasma physics simulation. Image from NERSC.

EnSight News

Two news items from CEI, makers of EnSight, this week. First, EnSight now features a direct reader for GMV files output by CPFD’s Barracuda virtual reactor software (see image below). This new feature is in addition to the native EnSight case file export already in Barracuda.

A screen capture of a video made in EnSight of a Barracuda simulation. Image from CEI.

CEI has also partnered with zSpace to deliver CFD post-processing through”virtual holographic computing,” a virtual reality technology.

News in Brief

“Empty water” – environmentally conscious and aesthetic design or BS? Image from SolidSmack.com.

• Design Phillipe Starck has invented “empty water,” a low-flow faucet design that doesn’t feel like low-flow.
• Volume 27 Issue 3 of the International Journal of CFD is now available.
• Although it’s not yet on the website, this year’s TFAWS will be held at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida.
• New to me: SSIIM, Sediment Simulation in Intakes with Multiblock option, is a Navier-Stokes CFD codes for river sedimentation engineering.
• Visualizing Data brings us the best of the visualization web for April 2013.
• A brief blurb on Formula 1, CFD, and big data.
• Desktop Engineering writes about CAESES from Friendship Systems for CFD-driven shape optimization.
• Monica Schnitger writes about Exa’s financial performance. For the quarter ending 30 April Exa’s income was $12.5 million, an increase of 11%. For the fiscal year ending March 2014, Exa expects income in the $55 to $58 million range.
• CD-adapco’s Bill Clark writes about simulating systems (instead of just components) with a promise of more to come.
• Enjoy this collection of vintage photographs of NASA wind tunnels.

For you fans of history, here a some vintage NASA photographs of their test facilities. The photo above shows the test section of the NASA Glenn 10×10 foot supersonic tunnel (where I interned during the summer of 1983.)

Contest News

MSC announced the winners of their Simulating Reality contest. The Winner’s Showcase entry that stood out for me by Kumho Tire (see image below) and simulates the interaction of tire tread and wet road surface.

A winning entry from MSC’s Simulating Reality contest from Kumho Tire. Screen capture from a video from MSC.

CD-adapco is now accepting entries for their 2014 calendar contest. Due date is 31 August.

Applications

CFD simulation of flow over an elephant. Simulation done with Caedium CFD. Image from Symscape.

• CFD and heat transfer simulations of an elephant. [What I find most remarkable about this article is the statement “…shows good agreement with wind tunnel experiments.” Wind tunnel? I’d love to see an elephant in NASA Ames’ 80×120 tunnel.]
• Simulations using ADINA CFD contribute to our understanding of fetal heart health.
• Here’s an interesting how-to article from Flow Science on converting topographic point cloud data to STL.
• ADS is offering a free white paper (registration required) on use of cloud-based CFD to simulate compressor performance.
• GrabCAD shares a few tips for converting CAD data.
• The Sauber F1 Team has posted to YouTube several CFD related videos including external aero, fuel sloshing, and side wind.
• Part II of techCAE’s article on pump cavitation analysis with CFX.
• LearnCAx shows us how to write a user defined function for Fluent.
• Pointwise’s Y+ Calculator is now available as an iPhone app. [Impress your friends! Captivate small children! Download today!]

Water Water Everywhere

From empty water (see above) to sonic water. Put a pan of water on top of a speaker, play your favorite music, and project video of the water on a wall and what do you get – Sonic Water. [Any fan of Pink Floyd has seen this type of thing before.]

Sonic Water. Image from Neatorama.