Applications and Software

Converge CFD simulation of the oral plume left by someone walking down an aircraft aisle. Image from Machine Design.

• Best CFD blog article title EVAR: Because No One Likes Sand in their Crack. Kudos CD-adapco.
• Via the CFD World blog comes news of PyFR, “an open-source Python based framework for solving advection-diffusion type problems on streaming architectures using the Flux Reconstruction approach of Huynh.”
• Here’s an article about the use of Converge CFD for aircraft interiors. See image above.

From Sruli Recht studio comes the jacket any serious CFDer will wear. Click image for source.

Meshing

• Scan & Solve for Rhino isn’t CFD but the implications for meshing are interesting.
• Speaking of Rhino and meshing, KUBRIX BlockRanger is now available for hex meshing.
• In the recently release Pointwise V17.2 you’ll find the ability to rapidly generate hybrid meshes with near-wall hex layers.
• FLOW-3D v11 will have new tools for checking their FAVOR meshing technique.
• The meshing contest geometry for the International Meshing Roundtable 2014 is the Tower Bridge.

This year’s International Meshing Roundtable meshing contest is London’s Tower Bridge. (Image from Pointwise)

More Applications

• In this concise summary of the limitations placed on aerodynamic design of Formula 1 cars we learn that CFD is limited to 30 teraflops, a reduction of 25% from the previous year.
• If you want to draft off another swimmer it seems that if you remain about 6 meters behind another swimmer your drag coefficient will be 84% of theirs. (From the Journal of Sports and Medicine.)

Pressure contours simulated using CFD of swimmers utilizing drafting. Click image for source.

Events and Validation

• DEVELOP3D Live is an event for CAD junkies focused on “Interesting stories, about Interesting People who design interesting stuff – and the digital tools they use to do it.” There’s a nice write-up of this year’s event on the enigmatically named The CAD Setter Out blog in which we read that cloud = collaboration.
• Prof. Lorena Barba’s presentation on “The Reliability of Computational Research Findings: Reproducible Research, Uncertainty Quantification, and Verification & Validation” is available online, including slides and video recording. Conclusion: knowing and publishing uncertainty is the key to reproducibility.
• On a related note, Sandia National Labs is hosting a V&V Challenge Workshop in advance of the ASME V&V Symposium.

Business

• If you’re interested in keeping up with how PTC’s doing, Monica Schnitger shares info through March. [You will read about IoT, the internet of things. If you haven’t already heard that term, you’ll likely be hearing a lot about it in the future from a variety of sources.]
• Here’s the best of the visualization web for March 2014.
• Marin in the Netherlands has an opening for an Applied CFD Specialist.
• Boeing thinks Altair is excellent and awarded them as such.
• CIMdata thinks ANSYS’ acquisition of SpaceClaim substantially strengthens their products.

Grid Painting

Artist Ann Thornycroft is very aware of the inter-relationship of humans and nature. Unlike other painters who insist that every horizontal line isn’t the horizon and every vertical line isn’t a person, for her the horizontal line represents nature while the vertical lines are human figures.

Ann Thornycroft, Blue Grid, 2011

Bonus: Combining sound and fire is just insane – Pyro Board.