All textbooks teach you how important the post-processing is. For most Generation Y engineers, post-processing (and maybe even the whole CAE) almost equal to visualization as discussed in this post.

Yes, post-processing is important: it gives you the chance to justify your one-month (or one-day, or one-week, or one-year) work; it shows you something you want or something unexpected.

If you are lucky, you can even show how your simulation matches the experimental results. If you don’t have any experimental data (unfortunately, nowadays, this is not uncommon any more), you can still justify your results against common sense.

Of course, “right” or “accurate” results are not the goal of simulation.  The purposes of simulation usually  include:

• to get some data or insights that are impossible, or impractical, or too expensive, from experiments or physical tests (so that the process or system or physics can be better understood; for PhD students, more colorful figures in papers and thesis) ;
• to diagnose the problems encountered of a system (or a component) in real-world operation (so that the possible causes or scapegoats can be identified);
• to predicate the performance of a system

… Read the rest “From post-processing and visualization to simulation result exploration”

The post From post-processing and visualization to simulation result exploration appeared first on CAE Watch.

One of the alternatives for CFD simulation is the lattice Boltzmann equation (LBE), where the fluid is treated as fictitious mesoscopic particles (not molecules). If you need something to make you sleepy, please read the short (and concise, and free) book:  A Practical Introduction to the Lattice Boltzmann Method.

But for commercial CFD code, most are based on Navier-Stokes equations, and differ in the numerical method: finite volume, or finite element, or a hybrid of both. Finite difference based CFD is hard to find in commercial codes.

When Exa hit the market with the first commercial LBE based CFD code, PowerFlow, about 15 years ago, not so much buzz was created in CFD market. Actually, the first a few releases got not-so-good reviews, partially due to the marketing and sales issues (over-promising). Of course, apparently, in recent years,  they got a lot of improvements in both solver and marketing. They also got a few big customers in the automotive industry.  But it is still not considered as the mainstream CFD software among CFD practitioners. In the academic circle, there have … Read the rest “Navier-Stokes vs lattice Boltzmann: will it change the landscape of CFD?”

The post Navier-Stokes vs lattice Boltzmann: will it change the landscape of CFD? appeared first on CAE Watch.

The two parties involved usually are not balanced: a big shark in the CAE or PLM market and an almost unheard (for the majority of CAE users) name.  For the smaller party, who usually has something special in a niche market, the partnership gives them greater exposure to more potential customers; while for the bigger party, such a partnership can complement their product portfolios so that they can provide a broader solution.

An interesting example is the partnership between ANSYS and LSTC. Before ANSYS acquired Century Dynamics in 2005, they did not have their own explicit solvers, while the major competitors, Abaqus and MSC, both had. So the partnership was critical for ANSYS to provide a full FEA solution. For LSTC, of course, ANSYS becomes one of their major distributors of their LS-DYNA solver. However, such a partnership becomes less important for ANSYS because they now have their own explicit solver (Autodyn).

So, just like any real-world relationships, the partnership is never … Read the rest “Partnership in CAE Industry”

The post Partnership in CAE Industry appeared first on CAE Watch.

Predicting the future of CFD is similar to weather forecasting, maybe just like Mayan’s Apocalypse.

But this does not stop us from expecting a new prediction, just like you check the weather forecast before travel.

As my first degree is meteorology related, please do not expect the prediction is more accurate than weather forecasting for the next 365 days.

#1. Automated meshing:  a classical fairy tale continues

Fairy tales always have listeners, and of course, tellers as well. When you are young, you are listeners; when you are older, you may gradually become a teller.  What has not been changed is the story.

Automated meshing is such a classic fairy tale in CFD industry.

Meshing is always one of the most challenging tasks for most real-world CFD problems (I am not talking about flow over an infinite plate). Automated mesh generation is the dream … Read the rest “CFD in 2013: what will change? what will not”

The post CFD in 2013: what will change? what will not appeared first on CAE Watch.