Best Way to start CFD

A great grand welcome to the world of computational fluid dynamics a stream of engineering that is thought to be very complex and open its doors only to those who excel in mathematics and equations.  Let me make you clear that it’s not always.

Commercial packages like FLUENT and ANSYS CFX has broken this hard locked door and has given a breakthrough in engineering. All you need is to understand the basics of fluid mechanics and aerodynamics without any compromise. Saying so, does mean equation more than that the understanding of what happens in a flow stream.

Coming to the point, the most frequent question I ever come across is that “Is it really worthwhile to relay on the packages or its worth only when you generate your own coding and solve those governing equation with the help of computers?-Is this alone means CFD?” This post is to clarify this basic doubt that burns in every beginner who is at the start line of the computation using packages.

                Obviously yes! Developing your own codes is the most favorable thing and advisable too, on the other hand using packages is nowhere less. It depends on the problem basically. It can be briefed in three major points on why a package is good for the starters.

                Firstly, the software packages have their own limitations and restricted boundary conditions when it solves a problem which makes advanced user and researchers to go for coding. But on the other hand, not every one of us uses the packages to that extent where those limitations come into play. “It’s not bad at all to use packages rather than coding unless you do complex problems (problem that cannot be solved with existing packages)”.

                Secondly, the usage of package is nevertheless lower compared to the coding. One have to genuinely agree with the fact that “one who wants to present his work uses PowerPoint or some presenter package and never tries to develop his own software”. Likewise not everyone needs to stick to coding, packages are already available and you can use them with ease.

                Finally, the most important factor of packages that surpasses coding is that for young engineers who wishes to use these packages as a preliminary tool on their project work before going for experimentation. It’s not possible for them to develop their own coding within a short span of time and carryon them experimentally. In such cases it’s always better to depend on packages which can solve even a complete aircraft model in days.    

                CFD packages save time and serve as an efficient tool to analyse basic problems in fluid dynamics especially aerodynamics, to study the interaction of various bodies with flow and even more sophisticated problems in high speed flows.  All you need to do is to follow us and practice problems that you come across day to day.

                This blog is to be crafted in such a way to guide you from start to the never ending road of CFD; we hope to travel with you more actively with your comments.