It’s the last week of CFD for 2018 and what a week it has been. In addition to several CFD jobs being opened and events announced, you still have a chance to make it to San Diego next weekend for the 2nd Geometry and Mesh Generation Workshop. There are also several case studies of very cool CFD applications that you’re certain to find enjoyable. And here we have one of the coolest images of a fluid phenomenon I’ve ever seen from our friends at FYFD. Until next year, enjoy what’s left of this one.

GMGW-2

One week from tomorrow the 2nd AIAA Geometry and Mesh Generation Workshop will kickoff in San Diego at the site of AIAA’s annual SciTech Forum. The 2-day GMGW-2 workshop consists of 4 events that are certain to provide meshing insights to anyone interested in applied CFD.

• Participants will be presenting their work on 3 workshop test cases and members of the organizing committee will share compilations of all the submitted results to help identify trends. The three cases are:
  • Case 1: Exascale Meshing (i.e. 30 billion cells) of the NASA High Lift Common Research Model (HL-CRM). Case 1 is designed to break our tools and processes in order to learn what needs to be fixed before the year 2030 when Order 10.5 will be Medium resolution, not Hero resolution.
  • Case 2: GMGW-1 Remeshing of the HL-CRM. For new workshop participants, your data will add to what was collected during GMGW-1 for evaluating the state of the art. For participants who also participated in GMGW-1, your data will document progress made on meshing processes and tools in the intervening year and a half.
  • Case 3: OPAM-1 Parametric Remeshing. The OPAM-1 case explores the ability to rapidly and robustly mesh parametric variations of a geometry model. A secondary goal is the rapid generation of geometry models. The intent is to simulate the application of CFD in a design environment.
• The afternoon of the workshop’s 2nd day is devoted to mini-symposium on Mesh Effects on CFD Solutions. This event is intended to foreshadow future CFD workshops on the HL-CRM configuration and help design numerical experiments that will help us collect data on the issues that vex meshing and CFD.

Registration for GMGW-2 is still open on the AIAA SciTech Registration website.

Software

• The funding campaign for OpenFOAM in 2019 has begun with gold, silver, and bronze packages. As they say, “If you do not fund or contribute, you have no say in future availability, usability, robustness and extensibility.”
• ENGYS released HELYX v3.1.1, their general purpose CFD package.
• DEVELOP3D delves into the details of Femap 12.
• MSC released v14.1 of their Cradle suite of CFD tools.
• MSC released Actran 19.
• Elemental, CFD software from the University of Cape Town, was recognized by Airbus with the Best Innovations in Flight Physics award.

Results of a CFD simulation using OpenFOAM of two Indy cars in an overtake scenario. See link below. Image from nextplatform.com. 

From Pointwise

• If you love CFD and meshing and are just starting your career, Pointwise has an entry-level position that may be perfect for you on our Technical Support Team [or as I like to call it, our Customer Success Team]. Check out the details of this Technical Support Engineer position today and we hope to receive your resume soon.
• The Meshy Award 2018 was presented to Tim Weathers from CRAFT Tech for his hybrid mesh for a compressor loop being used to model supercritical CO2 power cycles. Click through to see images of the winning mesh.

It’s the mesh that unites us. source

Applications

Red marks the spots where lightning is most likely to strike. See link below. Image from blogs.3ds.com. 

• NASCAR, Onshape, and CFD: Germain racing is using Onshape to design their 2019 car and says “To be able to make the design changes, run CFD simulations and get the results within a day and a half is pretty awesome.”
• New CFD simulations of two Indy cars in an overtake scenario revealed that there’s more influence on the leading car from the trailing car than previously thought. See image above.
• Not just for Indy cars: CFD simulation of tandem cyclists in crossflow.
• Use of CFD to design pushboats.
• AI is being used with high-resolution CT scans and CFD to better understand patient-specific lungs.
• See how Simulia software can be used to simulate lightning strikes on aircraft. (Registration required.) [I never really understood my EE classes as an undergrad and this article extends my bafflement with this statement. “Composites are poor conductors and do not provide much electric shielding.” Wouldn’t being a poor conductor mean it’s more of an insulator and therefore a shielder? Especially relative to aluminum.]
• CFD helped design Bombardier’s Global 7500.

This mesh-like maze called Glass Master was created in 2014 by Damien Soskin. To see more of his work visit amazingmazes.co.uk where this image is from. 

Events, Jobs, News

• Predictions for CFD in 2030 is a long-ish article about future alternatives to RANS like LES, DES, DDES, Hybrid RANS, DNS, etc.
• Williams F1 seeks to hire a CFD Methodology Engineer.
• Beta CAE’s 8th International Conference will be held in Munich on 20-22 May 2019. [I don’t know whether this is new or not, but the event has a cool name – Before Reality.]
• NAFEMS’ 4th International Conference on Simulation Process and Data Management will be held in Quebec City on 17-20 June 2019 along with the NAFEMS World Congress.
• On a topic related to SPDM, Tech Clarity is running a survey on how companies manage their design data and related product development processes.
• EMiT 2019 (aka the Emerging Technology conference for assessing how to best leverage the latest computing hardware for CFD and more) will be held in the UK at the University of Huddersfield on 9-11 April 2019.
• Converge User Conferences are coming in 2019 to…
  • Europe, 11-15 March
  • India, 14 and 16 May
  • North America, 23-27 September
• The CAESES User Meeting 2019 will be held in Berlin on 18-20 September.
• Vantage Partners at NASA in Cleveland has an opening for a CFD engineer.
• UberCloud came home from SC18 with 3 awards for cloud-based HPC.
• Numeca launched a new magazine about simulation, ReSolve.
• ESI reported for Q3 a total revenue increase of 12% which includes a license revenue increase of 16%.
• [Here’s my attempt at a funny headline:] JUUL Inhaled Envenio.

There’s no such thing as off-season when it comes to understanding why a baseball pitch moves the way it does. Shown here is a knuckleball with trailing wake. Image from phys.org. 

Something Squirrelly

There are times when I see a work of art that uses a mesh or faceted motif and I can immediately start getting a feel for what the artist might be doing.

And then there’s a brightly faceted squirrel holding a smooth black dove.

Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to have this work by Okuda San Miguel here in Fort Worth instead of in Boston. I am a huge fan of public art and this piece is perfect. If any of you Boston-based readers have seen these works let me know how they look in person.

As originally seen on Colossal, this squirrel/dove pair is one of seven pieces that are 8+ feet tall. Unfortunately, the artist’s website was unavailable so I was unable to delve further into his body of work.

One of several pieces of public art in Boston by Okuda San Miguel. Image from colossal.com. See link above.