Last Year’s News

• From the Better Late Than Never Department comes this roundup by Desktop Engineering of Christmas-themed CFD solutions. In Have Yourself a Merry Little Solver you’ll find CFD solutions from Hanley Innovations, Symscape, and UFO-CFD (see image below).
• Monica Schnitger provides a cogent summary of 2013.
  • The cloud means flexibility for how customers use software.
  • The cloud also means clouds of points and their use as geometry.
  • “Don’t underestimate Autodesk.”
  • See the rest of her analysis at the link.

UFO-CFD computed the flow around a skydiving Santa Claus. Image from Desktop Engineering.

Events & Other News

• The International Aerospace Engineering Conference, themed “Harnessing Novel Technologies in Aerospace Engineering,” will be held 28-29 August 2014 in Dubai.
• Desktop Engineering’s Anthony J. Lockwood really likes the case made by Tech-Clarity’s Jim Brown on why you should have a unified CAD strategy (i.e. use a single CAD product for everything). Brown’s ROI computations make for a compelling argument.
• If you’ve ever asked yourself “What is an FEA Solver?” this article is for you. But what I liked most about it is the illustration of pre, solver, and post (included below).

The FEA process – pre, solver, post – as illustrated on the FEA for All blog.

Software & Applications

• Tecplot RS 2013 Release 2 is now available for oil and gas reservoir modeling.
• Beta CAE introduced a new product for CAE workflow management called SPDRM.
• Volume 5 Issue 4 of CFD Letters is available including six articles. The publishers are also seeking subject matter experts to write editorials for the journal.
• Watch the shock wave from a detonation.
• “…for the first time all fluid dynamic design during America’s Cup has been carried out with the use of CFD only.” For Oracle Team USA this means STAR-CCM+.

CFD solution for Oracle Team USA’s catamaran computed using STAR-CCM+. Image from Desktop Engineering.

Not Fluids But You Won’t Care

Three-dimensional Mid-Air Acoustic Manipulation by Ultrasonic Phased Arrays. Yawn.

Levitation and Tractor Beams. WOW.

[Anyone who had a big stereo system in the 70s and 80s knows about this already through actual experience. Kids these days with their ear buds have to rediscover it.]

Japanese researchers have developed a method for moving millimeter sized particles in 3D space using intersecting acoustic waves. Image from Colossal. Click on image for animation.