Software

• Stanford’s SU2 open-source CFD code is now maintained on GitHub. Visit the repository here.
• CEI announced that EnSight now supports TRK (particle track files) from STAR-CCM+. (Be sure to watch the videos.)
• A brief article about acoustic simulation of turboprop noise.

Included here primarily for the mesh. This is an aeroacoustic simulation of aircraft cabin noise from turboprops. Image from SAE.

Business

• If you’ve ever struggled to make sense of the business side of CAE you’ll probably want to take the time to listen to this interview with Monica Schnitger on the Life Upfront podcast. [Although I'm dubious that earnings season is more exciting than football season.]
• Forbes delves into the issue of reinventing CAD for the cloud. [Warning: the term democratization is used.]

Applications

Airfoil simulation done on a GPU. Image from NVIDIA.

• Students at TU Clausthal used a GPU for transient airfoil simulations on meshes with 300,000 cells.
• Symscape describes the CFD simulation of a pitot tube and manometer.
• CFD will be used to study sand erosion.
• Anyone looking for aerodynamic data to valid their CFD should go immediately to NASA’s website for the Common Research Model (CRM).

NASA CRM model installed in a wind tunnel. Image from NASA.

Fluids and Crystals

We know what fluids are and we know that crystals are rigid solids with some very interesting material properties. Furthermore, we all know what LCDs are. But what about a crystalline liquid?

Using a computer simulation, physicists at La Sapienza University in Rome showed that if you chill a colloid in just the right way you get a stable fluid that also has the properties of a solid, like a crystal. The technical paper is available at Nature Physics, registration required.

When the Fluid is the Computer

Having just mentioned LCDs, the segue to this news item is perfect (even if the fluid is only the display and not the entire computer). The AquaTop projects images onto a fluid surface while a Kinect tracks your interactions with the fluid and hence the projected display.

A recent article complained that engineering students graduate without ever getting their hands dirty building things. I wonder if those employers will be happy if students are getting their hands wet?

The AquaTop computer display developed by Tokyo’s University of Electro-Communications is truly what you’d call an immersive environment. Image is a screen capture of a video from CNET.