This Week in CFD

Applications

• Just in time for St. Patrick’s day beer drinking, COMSOL computes why bubbles rise in your glass of stout.
• Researchers at Johns Hopkins used CFD to study the wind conditions that make the 12th hole at Augusta National “the scariest 155 yards in golf.” [Not even CFD could save my golf game, as co-worker Pat Baker intimated in his This is How I Mesh profile.]
• Here are 10 new features in ANSYS 17.0 for aerospace simulation.
• A case study from Transvac on tank jet mixers.

Using the aerodynamics of 18-wheelers as an example, Symscape asks how we’re challenging orthodoxy with our use of CFD. Image from Symscape. Click image for article.

News from Pointwise

• Join us on o5 April for the webinar The Stanford Solar Car Project’s Race for Efficiency in which you’ll see how students used Pointwise for meshing, SU2 for flow solving, and Tecplot 360 EX for results extraction – a framework that helped them improve the aerodynamic efficiency of Arctan, their 6th place finishing vehicle.
• The call for papers is open until 01 July for the Pointwise User Group Meeting 2016, 21-22 September in Fort Worth. [Psst: The Meshy is coming.]
• Next Pointwise training course here in Fort Worth is 12-14 April.

CFD Podcasts and Videos

• The first three episodes of the new Talking CFD podcast are available on iTunes and Soundcloud. [Give it a listen.] [Edited to include link to iTunes.]
  • Episode 1: Your host, Robin Knowles of CFD Engine, introduces the series.
  • Episode 2: Paul Bemis, Coolsim
  • Episode 3: Wolfgang Gentzsch, UberCloud
• Dr. Peter Vincent answers the question What is CFD?

Simulation of Rayleigh-Benard Convection. Image from FYFD. Click [this very cool] image for article.

Geometry

• The new release of solidThinking Inspire 2016 introduces new technology that is reported to get optimized, generative designs back into CAD more quickly for manufacturing.
• ZJ Wang (Univ. of Kansas) announced the launch of meshCurve, software for elevating the polynomial degree of meshes.
• Here’s a nice overview of 3D-CAD in STAR-CCM+ v11.02.
• Looking for cloud-based, 3D modeling software based on subdivision surfaces? Check out Vectary, currently accepting applications for their early access program. [Now if only someone would explain the magic of Sub-D surfaces to me.]
• Cyborg3D is new 3D modeling software that combines Sub-D and NURBS.
• Kubotek reports back from the Design 2 Part event [held in the DFW area] and cites a battery-powered dog pooper scooper as best design.

Read and see how you can generate a parametric propeller blade model from imported surfaces. Image from caeses.com. Click image for article.

A Little Bit of Everything

• FEA for All asks and answers the question “Why does meshing fail on your CAD model?”
• Ozen Engineering was named ANSYS Channel Partner of the Year for 2015.
• This may be the coolest CFD simulation I’ve seen in a long time: the entire human circulatory system (or at least every blood vessel that’s bigger than 1 mm in diameter). See image below.
• Cornell University is offering an online class A Hands-On Introduction to Engineering Simulations using ANSYS. Course starts 01 June 2016.
• ESI‘s 2015 sales were up slightly over 12%.

Events

• The 25th International Meshing Roundtable will be held in Washington, DC on 27-30 September 2016.
  • The call for papers is open and full manuscripts are due 30 May 2016.
  • The IMR is introducing a new Software Track (in addition to their traditional Research Track) for which applied meshing papers are solicited.
  • The IMR is again holding a meshing contest. [The IMR meshing contest is fun and if you’re doing computational work you should enter.]
• The 12th International Conference on Fluid Dynamics will be held 19-20 December 2016 in Cairo.  [Edited to correct conference name.]

Simulating the entire human circulatory system at the Randles Lab, Duke University. Image from BBC. See link above.

Let There Be Light – And Tetrahedra

When I say “artists who work with light,” the first two names that immediately pop into everyone’s mind are Robert Irwin and Dan Flavin. [That’s who you thought of, right?]

The work of James Nizam is profiled on Colossal under the title “the immateriality of light.” In that article you’ll find examples of how Nizam is able to shape light into geometric forms despite its lack of materiality. See the tet embedded within two pyramids in the image below.

The geometric parallel with meshing is obvious. But the immateriality of light also translates into meshing, not because the mesh itself is a virtual/digital construct, but because it’s the eventual CFD flow solution that’s made material through visualization.

Be certain to visit the artist’s website for more examples of his work.

James Nizam, Nested Polyhedra, 2014. Image from Colossal. Click images for article.