In addition to the usual software releases and event announcements, this week’s CFD news includes a link to a website that will require a deep dive to learn more about signed distance functions for exact geometry representations. And a marine case study reveals something interesting about scaling up model size results versus doing full-scale CFD directly. The image here is from a SimScale article on computational wind engineering.

CFD for…

• a low wake, high-speed ferry.
• tractor configuration tugs.
• a children’s surgery center.
• wind engineering.
• data centers’ virtual twins.
• hydrofoils.

Here’s a screen shot of a mesh from a civil engineering application called HEC-RAS [that’s new to me.]

Pointwise

The recent publications on the Solutions page of our website highlight how we’re advancing the science of mesh generation. Automation, advanced hybrid meshing, high-order meshing, and mesh adaptation are all covered. I invite you to take a look.

One of the recent additions to the Pointwise website is a demonstration of how to rapidly generate quad-dominant surface meshes and boundary layer resolving hexahedral layers for an aircraft propeller. See link below.

• Automatic Generation of High-Quality Meshes Using Pointwise and Glyph describes research we’re doing on truly automatic meshing using a combination of best practices and attribution of the geometry model in the design software.
• Rapid, Viscous CFD Mesh Generation for Propellers demonstrates how Pointwise’s quad- and hex-dominant meshing can be applied to a model aircraft propeller.
• Hybrid Meshing Key to Improving CFD Simulation Efficiency uses the Potsdam Propeller Test Case (a marine propeller) to show how Pointwise’s T-Rex technique can generate a mesh with fewer cells, higher quality cells, and a CFD solution that’s more accurate.
• High-Order Mesh Generation Using Pointwise illustrates our relatively new capability for not only elevating the polynomial degree of a linear mesh but curving the near wall cells to conform to the geometry model and smoothly blending that curvature onto the interior.
• Reducing Discretization Error with Mesh Adaptation shows how you can use point cloud sources to adapt your mesh to the CFD solution.

Software

• Flow Science released FLOW-3D v12.0 with immersed boundary, sludge settling, air entrapment, and more.
• Tech Soft 3D released HOOPS Communicator 2019, their web-based SDK focused on engineering graphics.
• MSC released Dytran 2019.0 with a fast-coupling approach for fluid structure interaction.

Various

Screen shot of a video demonstration of TotalSim’s Bramble, their new online resource that combines consultancy and cloud-based CFD.

• Thanks to alert reader Graham, I’m learning about the work of Inigo Quilez including signed distance functions for exact geometry. And among all the articles, code, and examples on his site I’ll quote from his blog: “If you ask me, Tech/Engineering is there to support Art/Design. And Art/Design is there to support Story/Experience/Product. Science/Research is there to inspire them all.”
• I’m a bit confused by a 3ds.com case study about simulation of vehicles crashing into kiosks proposed to be installed on NYC streets. The image of a typical solution models the kiosk as a box while the car striking it looks like a prop from the film Demolition Man. Doesn’t anyone in NYC drive a Honda? And will this high-tech wifi kiosk really look like a box?

CFD results for a ducted marine propeller from an article about how CFD at full-scale has revealed some problems with a widely used method for scaling-up model scale results. Image from worldmaritimeaffairs.com. 

Events

• There will be a Flow Visualization Competition at this summer’s ASME AJK Fluids Conference. Entries are due by 30 April. Cash prizes will be awarded.
• MSC Software’s 2019 Global User’s Conference will be held in Las Vegas on 11-14 June.

Daydreaming of Grids

Some people look at the clouds and see a giraffe or a bunny rabbit. Others of us see structured grids. George Copeland Ault’s painting Moonlit Desert recently sold at the Art Dealers of America show for around $230,000 as reported by Art News. I mean it in the nicest way when I say that this painting reminds me of a background painting by Maurice Noble I have from an animated film.

George Copeland Ault, Moonlit Desert, 1941. Image from artnews.com. See link above.

Bonus: Apparently, combined engineering/business undergraduate programs are growing in popularity to meet the shortage of “leaders who code and coders who lead” according to the article The Fast Track to Being a CEO-Engineer. IMO, if you’re smart enough to get one of these combo degrees in 4 years, you’re probably smart enough to become an a CEO-engineer without it.