*** Late Edition ***

Must Read

Despite being a post from nearly two years ago, Lessons from the History of CFD is well worth reading today. Its origin was the 2013 symposium Celebrating the Careers of Antony Jameson, Phil Roe and Bram van Leer. You’ll learn

• who first coined the term CFD,
• when and where artificial viscosity was invented,
• what article in 1965 crystallized the computational sciences,
• and more.

Bonus good reading: Lorena Barba’s article on Computational Thinking: I do not think it means what you think it means.

Meshing and CAD

FEA of rubber mounts using local remeshing in MSC’s software. Image from MSC. Click image for article.

• Mesh tolerancing advice (for 3D printing) from GrabCAD.
• Work with your meshes in your browser and online using MeshLabJS.
• Converting STL to STEP.
• Get free CAD models of any place on Earth from CAD Mapper.
• Read about generative design in which we learn CAD doesn’t really stand for computer-aided design but rather computer-aided documentation.
• TwinMesh delves into the impact of mesh resolution.

Reducing automotive emissions using CFD is the topic of an article about FloEFD from ENGINEERING.com. Image from ENGINEERING.com. Click image for article.

Software & Hardware

• Mentor Graphics is surveying FloEFD users. Why not take 2-3 minutes to help them out.
• PyFR 1.3.0 is now available with an interface to GiMMiK. [This news is a little late. Sorry.]
• OpenMDAO 1.6.0 (the framework for multidisciplinary design optimization) was released.
• [Inside HPC has been publishing a lot of good stuff lately like this article on] How the success of exascale computing depends on co-design, a system-wide approach to heterogeneity, intelligent networks, and compatibility.
• Beta CAE released ANSA v16.03.
• And Altair released Hyperworks v14.0.
• Advanced Clustering has made Star-CCM+ available in the cloud.
• And Desktop Engineering wrote Part 1 of their multi-part coverage of the STAR Global Conference where the big questions involved their acquisition by Siemens.

Events & Jobs

• The Thermal and Fluids Analysis Workshop (TFAWS) 2016 will be held 01-05 August at NASA Ames Research Center.
• Lots of aerodynamics in a Formula 1 car.
• Altair has openings for a Senior Development Engineer for compressible flows (Job ID #27245) and a Senior Development Engineer for multiphase flows (Job ID #27244). Learn more at their job site and enter the Job ID number.
• There’s a new CFD podcast coming “for entrepreneurial engineers wanting to take their CFD businesses to the next level” : Talking CFD from the folks at CFD Engine. [You never know who’ll they’ll interview.]
• The 11th OpenFOAM Workshop will be held 26-30 June 2016 in Guimaraes, Portugal.

Only 288 Days Until Christmas

Before you know it, it will be time to start decorating the tree for Christmas and what better way to top it off (at least for a mesher) than with a Ten Tetrahedra Tree Topper. GrabCAD user Blake Courter has created a 3D-printable ornament into which 50 LED lights can be inserted. Be sure to see the video here.

Blake Courter’s Ten Tetrahedra Tree Topper. Image from GrabCAD. See links above.

Bonus: If the simplest Platonic solid is the 4-sided tetrahedra, how do you make dice that when rolled will display 1 of 3 faces? The three-sided die (aka Trice) fascinated a student at the NJ Institute of Technology. Reading about the solution should fascinate you.