This Week in CFD

Space Shuttle Yields One Last Benefit for CFD

The advancements in CFD that have resulted from Space Shuttle applications are too numerous to list. But even in retirement, the shuttles are going to give back to CFD one last time.

Underside of the orbiter showing reflective dots that aid 3D scanning of the geometry. Photo from Smithsonian Air & Space.

Orbiter Autopsies in the May 2012 issue of Smithsonian’s Air & Space magazine quotes NASA deputy principle investigator Charles Campbell describing how 3D scans of the orbiter’s underside will capture the “as-flown” geometry of the vehicle. The as-flown geometry will be simulated at hypersonic conditions and compared to flight data. [The results should be very interesting. I think it was the X-38 that suffered excessive roll when dropped from the wing of a B-52 and the cause of that turned out to be a rather large asymmetry in the as-built versus as-designed geometry.]

• Orbiter Autopsies article

CFD for Vehicle Aerodynamics

CFD for Vehicle Aerodynamics at Chalmers Univ.

CFD for Vehicle Aerodynamics, a 3-day workshop to be offered by the University of Chalmers, will share expertise developed at their Vehicle Aerodynamics Laboratory for simulating road vehicles and trains. The differences between LES, DES, and URANS will be discussed as well as mesh generation, numerical schemes, and a practical approach to generating a solution from start to finish. Shape optimization and flow control will be discussed on the course’s second and third days.

The course will be held 29-31 August 2012 in Götenburg.

• CFD for Vehicle Aerodynamics website

News, Events and Applications

• How a tornado forms.

  The International Conference on LES for Internal Combustion Engine Flows will be held 29-30 November 2012 in Rueil-Malmaison, France.

• Bend Research offers CFD services to the pharmaceutical industry.
• Globe control valve design by CFD.
• NVIDIA offers the Parallel Forall Blog on the topic of parallel programming.
• Caution: This fluid dynamics blog has a bad word in its name. DO NOT CLICK the link if you are offended by bad language. However, the blog has some interesting articles on fluid dynamics including one illustration of tornadogenesis which is topical considering what happened here in Texas earlier in the week.
• The WorldCAD Access blog asks which of the CAD vendors will be the first to support a gesture-based interface in Windows 8. [I'm interested in knowing whether anyone is interested in using a gesture-based UI for their CAD or CAE software. Are you going to sit for 8 hours a day touching your screen?]
• Symscape’s Caedium CFD is included in this SGI video about their ICE X computer.
• Intel’s website includes a 12-part series on fluid simulations for video games.
• The Siemens PLM Software blog has started a 3-part series of an FEA analysis in NX. [I know it's not fluids but it's nice to see how the other half lives.]
• Optimal Solutions released Sculptor 3.1 with new and easier ways to morph your meshes.
• Stanford’s Dr. Margot Gerritson gives a great introductory lecture on CFD, Mathematics Gives You Wings – A Fluid Dynamics Primer.

MFD – Martini Fluid Dynamics

Back when I used to enjoy a drink before dinner my preference was a vodka martini, very dry, on the rocks, with a twist. Unlike James Bond, I didn’t specify shaken versus stirred. However, there’s an interesting debate about which mixing technique is better and fluid dynamics can help us settle that issue.

• Shaken or Stirred? from Gizmodo