In this lucky “Friday the 13th” edition we have some good, long reads on simulation driven design and the cloud, a couple non-traditional applications of CFD, and a wonderful illustration of suspended droplets. 

Lucky Reading

• Lifecycle Insights prefaces an upcoming series of blog posts on the topic of simulation driven design with an assessment (“but the strategy of putting slimmed down FEA into CAD for engineers simply hasn’t panned out.”) and some future insights.
  • Bring engineers and analysts together with teamwork and collaboration.
  • Eliminate data translation.
  • Streamline setup.
• I’ve mentioned this report before but it’s probably worth mentioning again. Responses to Envenio’s CFD survey indicate there’s plenty of room for improvement in CFD because only 14% of you are fully satisfied with your CFD setup. Registration required.
• Engineering.com assesses the current state of the cloud for simulation and looks past the oft-cited barriers of data security and uploading/downloading big data files to the opportunities provided by availability of a scalable computing resource to be exploited by the democratization of simulation.

This image made my week. Our friends at FYFD shared it to illustrate the angle of intersection of the fibers that supports the largest droplets. (It’s not the obvious guess.) Of course, I like this image because it reminds me of Piet Mondrian’s classic paintings. Image from FYFD. Read full article here. And while you’re there, consider subscribing.

Lucky Software

• [Better late than never.] ANSYS 19 was announced back in January and the updates in CFD include reacting and multi-phase flows, fluid-structure interaction, and results visualization.
• ParaView 5.5.0 was released.
• Is it just me or is virtual reality a hot topic in CFD recently? Read about VR in Autodesk CFD. See image below.

VR in the OR. Screen capture from an Autodesk video showing airflow in an operating room to better understand ventilation design. See link above.

Lucky Events & More

• The LS-DYNA International Conference and Users Meeting will be held in Dearborn, MI on 10-12 June 2018.
• The U.S. Dept. of Energy issued a call for proposals for two exascale computing systems to come online in 2021-2023.
• The UK Fluids Conference will be held at the University of Manchester on 4-6 September 2018. The call for abstracts is open with a due date of 23 April.
• The Siemens PLM Software 2018 Simcenter Conference in the U.S. will be held on 15-17 October in Detroit.
• Flow Science has internship openings.

Lucky Applications

• Here’s another example of a non-traditional use of CFD: scientists determined that Neanderthal skulls and their 29% larger sinuses allowed them to warm and humidify more air than other hominids.
• Science says that the best glass from which to drink your Guinness is a giant martini glass, again illustrating the chasm between knowledge and wisdom. See image below.

CFD simulations of bubble motion in two types of glasses for pouring stout. Image from dailymail.co.uk. See link above.

Lucky Pointwise

• The call for presentations for the Pointwise User Group Meeting 2018 is now open with a due date of 13 July. Dust off your last CFD application, highlight its mesh generation aspects, and send us an abstract.
• We’re running a 9-question survey on geometry model interoperability between CAD and meshing software. Would you please take a couple of minutes to share your experiences with us?

Totally Tubular Tetrahedron

Tara Donovan created this site-specific installation for the Armory show. Ranging from 8 feet tall at its peak to 2 inches tall and 33 feet wide at its base, this beautiful right-angle tetrahedron changes the viewer’s encounter with it depending on the view-point. The clear plastic tubes from which it is constructed add an additional element. “Without light, it’s just a bunch of tubes” says Donovan. But the ambient lighting and floor and wall colors combine to energize the experience.

You can read more about Donovan at the Pace Gallery website where you’ll see that she’s very interested in elevating mundane materials to the sublime.

Tara Donovan, Untitled, 2018. source

P.S. I’ve been surviving since Tuesday on Nyquil and Dayquil so I have no idea whether what I just wrote makes any sense. However, there’s a very real possibility that it makes more sense that what I usually write.

P.P.S. Without medication it seems I was taken in by an April Fool’s prank that I shared last week (Amazon buying Shapeways.) Thanks to alert reader Mark for pointing out my gullibility.

Editor’s Note: In a fit of 80s nostalgia, I changed the title of the last section after this post was first published.