In this end-of-summer edition of This Week in CFD we see several outstanding examples of applied CFD including a heart valve done with STAR-CCM+, a tuna done with SC/Tetra, and certification by CFD using FUN3D. And then there’s this simulation of contamination around a satellite done by Particle in Cell for which yours truly made the mesh. (Even I can import a CAD file and press the “mesh” button.)

Computing & Business

• Texas is getting a lot of money for a new supercomputer. More specifically, the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at UT Austin has been awarded $60 million by the NSF for a 35-40 petaflop Dell system based on 16,000 Intel Xeon processors to be called Frontera.
• Trying to grok this announcement that The Synergy Group (involved in “branded entertainment”) is venturing into SaaS technology including CFD, an effort they say is “poised for market domination.”

Pointwise, Just the Facts

• Time to register for the Pointwise User Group Meeting 2018 (14-15 November, Fort Worth).
• Time’s running out to submit your entry for The Meshy Award.
• Still time to register for the Pointwise Marine and Wind Energy Workshop in Hamburg on 18 September.

Applications

Love these images of geometry and overset mesh for simulation of a mechanical heart valve from the Simcenter Blog on how CFD in the form of STAR-CCM+ can help save lives. Images from siemens.com.

• SmartTruck is the first company to request certification of an 18-wheeler accessory based solely on CFD. They used NASA’s FUN3D code. Go there and watch the video. [This is a big deal.]
• Parametric design of a UAV using FloEFD.
• No surprise that the new McLaren 720S GT3 race car was designed in part using CFD. [Vroom vroom. First my brother and now my son are racing fans, specifically F-1 which I realize this isn’t. But my heart belongs to the Red Bull Air Race.]

SC/Tetra simulation of a tuna. Image from cradle-cfd.com. [No, I didn’t post this just because the work was done at Kinki University. Grow up, people.]

Software

• CFturbo SMP is a combination of CFturbo’s turbomachinery design software and Simeric’s CFD software.
• Here’s a video demonstration of some of the customization tools coming in Femap 12.
• CHAM has posted a video of proper meshing techniques for RhinoCFD.
• Tecplot RS 2018 is now available for visualization of reservoir simulation results and includes a brand new tool called a stamp plot.
  • For some background on Tecplot, watch their 4-minute video.

Reservoir simulation results in Tecplot RS 2018. Image from Tecplot. See link above.

• ENGYS released HELYX v3.1.0, their open source based CFD suite.
• Envenio shares their list of the advantages of structured over unstructured grids.
• Converge shares this detailed list of workflow tips. [Seems helpful]
• American Machinist hosts a recorded webinar (aka webcast) on the CAD Interoperability Survival Guide featuring Tech Clarity’s Jim Brown and Aaron Magnin from Autodesk. [If geometry model interoperability isn’t a problem for you, you are living a charmed life. All others should consider listening to this webcast.]
  • For one perspective on interoperability, check out our Survey Results – Mesh Generation and CAD Interoperability.

Radial pump meshing in CFturbo SMP, the new software from CFturbo and Simerics. [Of course I showed only the mesh image.] Image from empoweringpumps.com. See link above.

Fellowships and Jobs

• Are you a grad student? Do you want $50,000? NVIDIA’s 18th annual Graduate Fellowship Program will award deserving students up to that amount for innovative use of GPUs.
• Sandia National Labs is accepting applications for the John von Neumann Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (one year, renewable for a second).
• Flow Science seeks to hire a CFD engineering intern for water and environmental applications.
• ANSYS seeks application engineers in Sweden.

Alert reader Jim began his email with the humble brag “I just returned from the Alps…” where he found these mesh sculptures in Bettmeralp, Switzerland.

Events

• Pointwise’s Marine and Wind Energy Workshop will be 18 September in Hamburg.
• Flow Science has made available (registration required) the conference proceedings from their 2018 FLOW-3D European Users Conference.
• Numeca’s User Meeting 2018 will be held 16-17 October in Berlin.
• The UK Turbulence Consortium’s annual meeting is coming up on 10-11 September 2018 at Imperial College London.
• The ENGYS User Group Meeting is next week (3-5 September 2018) in London.
• The 34th International CAE Conference and Exposition will be held in Vicenza, Italy on 8-9 October 2018.
• Information on the upcoming 3rd Annual SU2 Developers Meeting in Glasgow has been updated.

Alert reader Bernhard shared this image he found online of a quad-dominant, cut-cell mesh embedded within a Cartesian grid.

Triangle at Sunset

Let’s get this out of the way right up front. Maybe you could’ve done this yourself, but you didn’t. And it’s not what it may appear to be at first glance so you probably couldn’t. [Too defensive?]

Photographer Reuben Wu is working on a series of landscape photographs under the project name Aeroglyph in which the geometries are only made visible by photography. That’s because the glyphs are drawn by lighted drones and captured by long exposure. Regarding his work in general, Wu says “I am driven not just by the urge to create imagery, but by a desire to explore new places as if they were unknown territory.”

As first seen on Colossal.com, Wu’s work ticked many of my technical boxes: the triangular mesh cell, use of the words “aero” and “glyph” (Pointwise’s scripting language), and the use of drones. From an artistic standpoint, the addition of the geometry to the otherwise placid scenery activates the photograph by juxtaposition of the modern (the drones, the symbols) and the ancient (the mythology of constellations).

Reuben Wu, photograph from the Aeroglyph series. Image from colossal.com. See links above.

Bonus: I’m hoping my friends who are engaged in particle simulations will enjoy the film Volumes by Maxim Zhestkov.

P.S. Sorry for the length of this post but it’s two weeks of CFD news. Plus I feel I’m snarkier today than normal but it’s been a long week and I’m looking forward to the upcoming 3-day holiday weekend – so I can work more.

P.P.S. or P.S.S. I can never remember which one is correct. I feel as though I should categorize all of these posts as “Off Topic.”