For those of us in the USA, today’s post is the lead-in to the 3-day weekend celebrating Memorial Day. On that same USA theme, there’s mystery around a baseball’s drag and a video showing application of CFD to a motorboat’s hull (Back Cove 340 shown here). I suspect there will be a lot of baseball and boating this weekend. 

Events & More

• SimScale is offering the online course Introduction to CFD via the SolidProfessor platform.
• The call for papers deadline (30 May) is rapidly approaching for the International Meshing Roundtable. (Note: this is for full papers, not just an abstract.)
• The number of home runs per game in baseball has been increasing and an 84-page report has eliminated everything as a cause except a decrease in a baseball’s drag. Yet why that would be so remains unknown. MLB will take the high-tech route by forming a science advisory council and the low-tech route by “creating standards for mud rubbing to be enforced by umpires.”

Software

CFD is being used in London’s urban planning to evaluate the effects of new construction on wind flow patterns. Image from theengineer.co.uk. 

• Here’s a novel approach to CFD that uses machine learning to rapidly obtain results for surface pressure and velocity field: Learning Three-dimensional Flow for Interactive Aerodynamic Design by Umetani and Bickel.
• Software Cradle released v14 of their software suite.
• Cambridge Flow Solutions released BOXERmesh v3.8.3.
• Aither v0.9.0 is now available.
• DEVELOP3D wrote about the launch of Onshape Enterprise where for about $20,000/year you get an account to manage all your organization’s users and their use of the product.

Pointwise User Group Meeting

• The call for presentations for the Pointwise User Group Meeting 2018 is open with a deadline of 13 July. We are seeking presentations about CFD applications for which Pointwise was used for mesh generation with an emphasis on the mesh itself and your unique approach to meshing.
• Attendee registration is also. Now is the time to register and reserve your hotel room at the discounted rate.

Applications

Motivated by the need to provide cooling and inspired by beehives, Ant Studio used CFD to design the Cool Ant with clay tubes cooled by running water. Image from livemint.com.

• CFD was used to reduce the drag of a racing bicycle’s stem. [I had to look up what a bike’s stem was because it wasn’t obvious from the picture. It connects the handle bars to the steerer tube.]
• Here’s an article on the why and how of CFD for datacenter cooling design.
• CFD was applied to the hull design of the Back Cove 340.
• CFD results are being shown in the courtroom to support a plaintiff’s claim of infection in an operating room due to air circulation.

Floral Polygons

Mesh generation has been described as a dry, lifeless subject. Norihiko Terayama emphasizes that notion with his sculpture series Crust of the Polygon in which he encases dried plants within a mesh made from thread and strategically placed pins. Rather than emphasizing the desiccated state of the plants, the mesh enlivens them. The entire effect is quite delicate despite balancing on the pendulum between mathematical facets and organic tissue.

As originally seen on Colossal, you can read more about the artist and see more of his work on his website.

Norihiko Terayama, Crust of the Polygon, 2016. See link above.