This week features updates on many CFD-related events and a deep article on predicting where CFD will be in 2030.  The image to the right is from that article on the TENZOR blog and shows an LES simulation using an immersed boundary method. And Talking CFD is back!

News & Reading

• Do you know a student poised to change the face of the aerospace and defense industry? Nominations are now being accepted through 30 September 2018 for Aviation Week’s 20 Twenties, offered in association with the AIAA.
• If you like articles that are rich with detail, you should read Predictions for CFD in 2030 which delves into RANS, LES, DNS, and other acronyms with which I was not familiar. As for meshing, the authors cite immersed boundary methods, mesh adaptation, and high order techniques.
• Siemens Industry Software seeks a CFD engineer for a Technical Marketing position. [If this meshing thing doesn’t work out, this may be my fall-back job. Are you ready for that, Stephen?]
• Season 3 of the Talking CFD podcast is ready to go with an initial episode launched on 25 April.

Rotor simulation using LES and an immersed boundary method performed by Technion. Image from cfdisrealblog.wordpress.com. See link above.

Software

• Parasolid v30.1 includes enhanced booleans, editing, and faceted modeling.
• Fluent users will likely enjoy this lengthy and detailed discussion of near wall treatments and turbulence modeling.
• Pointwise Version 18.1 was launched recently and includes overset assembly of hybrid meshes, a plugin SDK for writing mesh importers, and more.
• Geometry modeling is to meshing as turbulence modeling is to CFD. Help us get past that trite characterization by answering 9 questions in our Mesh Generation and CAD Interoperability survey. [Thanks to those of you who have already participated.]

Applications

• What do you do in Formula 1 when CFD correlates well with wind tunnel data but neither matches reality?
• Here’s mention of CFD within the world of Australian supercars.
• Within the world of Red Bull Air Racing [which you should try to go see if possible because it’s a blast], an Edge 540 aircraft was 3-D scanned and the resulting STL file converted into a geometry model in CAD to support CFD simulations. [Which makes me wonder where the original CAD model is.]

Meshes have such a broad visual appeal that they show up all over the place. Here is one on the home page of Clade, a new “private club for investors, philanthropists, and collectors to connect with their peers on a global scale.”

Events

• The ASSESS 2018 Congress will be held on 28-30 October near Atlanta. This event is one aspect of the ASSESS Initiative‘s goal of vastly increasing the availability and effectiveness of engineering simulation and brings together a broad spectrum of people in the industry to share ideas and promote advancement. This event is by invitation only as attendance is limited. Invitations can be requested here.
• The Pointwise User Group Meeting 2018 will be held on 14-15 November in Fort Worth. The call for papers is open with a due date of 13 July. Attendee registration will open soon.
• The Thermal & Fluids Analysis Workshop (TFAWS) will be held 20-24 August 2018 in Galveston, Texas. The call for papers is open with a due date of 25 May.
• AIAA SciTech 2019 will be held 7-11 January in San Diego. Abstracts are due 11 June.
• The Converge User Conference North America will be in Madison, Wisconsin on 24-28 September 2018.

When Worlds Collide

I love it [am easily amused?] when two of my interests come together. So you can imagine my joy at seeing how Walt Disney World painted a mesh motif on their so-called Purple Wall, an oft-used meeting place that bridges Main Street USA and Tomorrowland.

I’ve reached out to some Disney folks to see if I can get any backstory on why and how this came to be. If and when I get an answer, I’ll share it here.

The Purple Wall at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom near the entrance to Tomorrowland. Image from blogmickey.com.