There are several open positions in the CFD world including one at Pointwise, and that’s not counting internships. We’ve got interesting articles on CAD-embedded CFD (as an example, the image here is from SolidWorks) and numerical algorithms for LES. For all that and more, click through to the full post.
Software and Applications
- Some interesting opinions are expressed by the authors (from Resolved Analytics) that was published by Digital Engineering on CAD Embedded CFD.
- The authors opine that simply embedded CFD in CAD does not solve the problem of “geometry simplification and cleanup” or “extracting the fluid region.” [I would’ve thought those two things would be a breeze in the CAD software.]
- Is CFD supposed to be serious or fun or both?
- “Overhyped”
- Speaking of CAD-embedded CFD, here’s an article about aircraft conceptual design in SolidWorks.

Images of SolidWorks flow simulations. Image from blogs.solidworks.com. See link above. [Notable because it’s not an aircraft orientation I see often in simulations. And it shows the mesh.]
Jobs at Pointwise
- We’ve got an entry-level opening on our Technical Support Team for a engineer to do meshing and CFD all day long. Perfect for new grads.
- We’re also looking for interns for summer 2019 on our Technical Support, Product Development, and Applied Research Teams.
Contest and Jobs
- Today is the last day to vote for Tech Briefs’ magazine’s 2018 Product of the Year award and the nominees include CAE software providers Altair and COMSOL.
- ANSYS has a job opening for a Software Developer II.
- Maya HTT has an opening for a Senior CFD Developer.

A mesh from Autodesk’s embedded CFD tool. Image from digitalengineering247.com. See link above.
Reading and Software and Applications
- The AIAA’s new CFD 2030 Vision Integration Committee contributed an article to Aerospace America’s annual year-in-review issue. Read Marching Toward the 2030 Vision.
- CFD was used to study the effect of fencing to mitigate wind loads on a building using ANSYS Fluent.
- Converge CFD was used on NRL’s Titan supercomputer (reportedly 6 months of computation time) to study an internal combustion engine design called an opposed piston engine.
- Use of CFD for the design of fire safety systems.
- New [to me] is Viiflow [not a typo], “based on the model of viscid-inviscid interaction.”

My image of the week is this award-winning graphic showing flow over a bat’s wings in flight. Image from americanscientist.org.
Applications and Software and Visualization
- The article Student Uses Fusion 360 to Make Mesh Compatible with Inventor Mesh Enabler confused me but I think the gist of this is a capability to convert meshes to B-Rep NURBS.
- Beta CAE released v19.0.2 of its software suite.
- OpenCFD released OpenFOAM v1812 with extended overset mesh capabilities and more.
- Prof. Z.J. Wang shares thoughts on numerical methods and LES.
- Presentations from the recent Code_aster user’s meeting in Italy are now available online.
- FieldView 18 includes new rendering capabilities, advanced data analytics, and much more for your CFD visualization and post-processing.
- Here’s Visualizing Data’s best of the visualization web for October 2018. [And I thought I was behind.]

FieldView visualization of an ultraFluidX CFD simulation. Image from ilight.com. See link above.
Kelley Johnson (No, the other one.)
I’m often pleasantly surprised when mesh-like or faceted fine art, especially something new, passes through my many media streams. That was the case with Kelley Johnson‘s work which I discovered by following New American Paintings.
When I see a work like the one below I always wonder what it is about faceting that the artist, Kelley Johnson in this case, is trying to do. I got a clue from the Miami Beach Untitled Art Fair website. I won’t quote the whole thing (which I recommend you read yourself) but here’s the relevant bit for me.
“I am interested in the interaction between two and three dimensional space and how their relationship to each other plays with the viewers perception of reality. “
That’s a pretty good description of mesh generation.