Software

• Flow Science released FLOW-3D Cast v4.1.
• Beta CAE released ANSA v15.3.3.
• There’s a new [to me] player in the cloud-based CFD arena: Trampo, who provides cloud-based access to STAR-CCM+.
• Tech Soft 3D launched Tetra4D Enrich for production of interactive 3D PDFs.
• GLview Inova 10.0, CAE post processing software, now has a “send to cloud” feature.
• ANSYS released SpaceClaim 2016 and nice video introducing its new capabilities.

Applications

This roll jet simulation of the Orion space capsule was visualized using Tecplot. Image from Tecplot. See link below.

• Tecplot 360 EX was used as part of NASA’s simulations of the aerothermodynamic environment around the Orion spacecraft.
  • Read more in this article from Desktop Engineering.
• DNV GL launched new CFD efforts for offshore oil and gas drilling: gas detector allocation and explosion risk analysis.
• This article about the Bloodhound SSC (supersonic car) mentions their use of CFD in the design.
• Coincidentally, another article appeared recently on the same use of CFD for the Aussie Invader rocket-powered car.
• Just a cool GIF I found on Twitter of an HVAC simulation.
• Symscape shares what it takes to properly setup your CFD simulation.
• [In perhaps one of the most unique applications of CFD I’ve run across,] researchers have used CFD to simulate how a 600 million year old organism fed.
  • What’s more interesting than the CFD is the fact that this organism has triradial symmetry.

Not your typical geometry for CFD simulation. Image from R&D Magazine. See link above.

Business & Events

Just a CFD shower curtain, one of the many CFD-themed gift items from Symscape. Click image for article.

• ESI‘s software license income for Q3 was up 16%. The article doesn’t mention OpenFOAM by name but does mention their work with recently acquired Ciespace.
• Our friends at Exa had a good Q3 with software license revenue up 9%.
  • On a related note, Exa has been cited as a “growth company.”
• Here’s a nice wrap-up of the Inaugural Barracuda Virtual Reactor User’s Conference. Presentations are available (registration required).
• You have until 30 December to submit your entry for Flow Science’s 35th Anniversary Simulation Contest.

Computing & Visualization

Example of patient-specific blood flow simulation. Image from SIAM News. Click image for article.

• Here’s something about the special skills of a computational scientist. [Do you know anyone like this?]
• On the topic of HPC, Desktop Engineering has compiled the Design Engineer’s HPC Handbook.
• Tecplot calls their One Trillion Cell Challenge complete.
• Best of the visualization web for September 2015.
• EnSight supports the Canon Mixed Reality display device.

Black Grid

Honestly, Wassily Kandinsky’s 1922 painting Black Grid only got on my radar because of its name. It’s almost like a riddle – what’s that regular grid doing in the midst of all that flowing chaos? Does it anchor the rest of the painting or float above it? I don’t know. Maybe you have some thoughts.

Wassily Kandinsky, Black Grid, 1922. Click image for source.

Bonus: I’m glad I’m not the only CFDer who writes about art. Read about the fine art of engineering from Mentor Graphics.

Double Bonus: The Design Automation Conference Silicon/Art Technology Show is accepting entries up to 24 Mar 2016. [Yes, it’s EDA but still.]