Visualization is such a big part of CFD (for better or worse) that an article included in this week’s compilation of CFD news should make for interesting reading: lessons learned from developing open-source visualization software. The financial news from the CAE world continues to show increasingly positive results which is a good sign that we’re putting the economic effects of Covid-19 behind us. And make certain you update your calendars for the rescheduled AIAA Aviation. Shown here is a teaser of a beautiful mesh in our image of the week from NASA.

AIAA announced that their Aviation 2021 Forum will not only be 100% online but that it has been rescheduled for 2-6 August. This positions it the week before their Propulsion and Energy Forum (9-11 August). Read AIAA’s announcement.

Have you downloaded Pointwise’s Y+ Calculator App for your iOS or Android device?

The LES Workshop on Smooth-Body Separation is coming up at AIAA SciTech 2022.

Palotov Motorsports uses SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation CFD for its lightweight, recreational track use automobiles. [Oddly, not a single flowfield image in an article about the use of CFD.]

This is one of those news items that’s a juxtaposition of two interests of mine: space travel and Disney. Joe Rohde, a long-time imagineer at Disney, is now the experience architect at Virgin Galactic. One of Joe’s last major projects at Disney was Pandora – The World of Avatar at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park. [True story – my lovely wife and I were staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and having breakfast early one morning. She was trying to get my attention but I wasn’t picking up her signals. But when I stood to head back to the buffet line, there was Joe Rohde sitting by himself at the table right next to ours. I’ll admit that a little bit of fan boi kicked in and I said hello and thanked him for the work he and his team had done in the park (after also apologizing for interrupting him). He was quite gracious and we chatted for a few minutes. I look forward to seeing what he does at Virgin.]

Neural Concept is another firm applying “3D deep learning software” to CAD and simulation to speed up the entire process, especially optimization.

CFD Support released TCAE 21.02.

CFD (as used in Formula 1!) for refrigerated storage. [First time I’ve sourced an article from Catering Insight.]

CFD for an aero road bike, the BMC Timemachine Road.

From Mike Bostock comes a worthwhile list of 10 things learned doing 10 years of open-source visualization. #1 Teaching is the most impactful aspect of tool building. [That one resonates with me because of something I often say: “Out-teach the competition.]

How many of us can claim a factor of 3 million performance increase with our codes? A quantum computer just did that with a materials simulation.

Eleven collegiate teams will compete in the Dept. of Energy’s 2022 Collegiate Wind Competition. Presumably, CFD will be used.

Cadence completed their acquisition of Numeca. This and more is covered by Monica Schnitger.

Aston Martin is returning to Formula-1 with CFD in their toolkit. [I never know whether to use Formula 1, Formula-1, F 1, F-1, or F1.]

CFD for cycling wheels.

Congratulations to the 2021 class of AIAA Fellows and Honorary Fellows. The former group includes Stanford’s Juan Alonso of CFD fame.

AIAA has opened the call for content for ASCEND in November 2021. “Building a sustainable off-world future requires the collective effort of a diverse global community of students and professionals with the ideas, skills and passions to solve complex problems and inspire new ways of thinking.”

Our friends at ANSYS pocketed about $215 million from 2020 Q4 based on revenue of $624 million. Both are vast increases over the previous quarter.

Pointwise Mesh Generation Foundations is an online, self-paced course that teaches you all about the software. Enroll today.

CFD for the SKODA Fabia. [Sorry about the missing diacritical.]

Would you consider attending the Space Art Exhibit coming to the National Museum of the Air Force?

News from CFMS on combining CFD and AI.

Jack Whitten has turned painting into a discrete sculpture through his use of “teserra,” his term for quads of acrylic paint, each a small painting unto itself. I would love to see this and similar works by Whitten because truly the “slow art” concept would apply in that you could stand there forever taking in all the details in addition to the entire effect. See more in this article from Hyperallergic and Hauser & Wirth.

Bonus: It looks like the World Championship Air Race is going to take over where the Red Bull Air Race stopped. So excited for 2022.