knowledge about CFD.
 

Dear Sir,

I Vasant Navati, am young (Mech) engg. graduate from India. with spacilization in 'Pipingn Design and Engineering'. I have read some good articles regarding application of CFD. I am very much impressed by the tremendous pottencial of CFD. I want to know more about the same. I want to be a CFD. engineer. I have some questions which I want to be clearified. 1] To be a CFD. engineer what all I should know? 2] To what extent I should know the all the related subjects? 3] How about career development in that field. 4] Who is training in India. 5] What are all the companies in India are using the same.

Hope my questions will get answered by respected sir's of CFX user forum. I am giving my field of expertise below. Presently I am working with "Three M Boilers. Pvt. LTd." a pune based company engaged in manufacturing of "Co- Generation Waste Heat Recovery Systems, Steam boilers, Hot water Generators & Chimneys" etc. under "Design/Application" Department.

Thanking you,

Your's faith-fully,

vasant navati.

Re: knowledge about CFD.
 

(1). Your questions are fairly general. (2). CFD deals with the computer simulations of fluid dynamics problems. If you have learned how to solve a heat conduction problem, using finite difference or finite volume methods on computer, then you are nearly there. (3). If you don't know what I am talking about the numerical solution of heat conduction problem using computer, then you really should go to the library and check out a text book on heat conduction, recently published. You can also try to read books in the field of numerical methods for applications or for engineers, especially the one with a lot of Fortran program examples. (4). Once you have these background knowledge, you can then move on to CFD, by reading some books on introductions to CFD. Then you will be solving fluid dynamics equations instead of heat conduction equation. (5). At this point, you have several options to deal with CFD. (6). You can spend more time to develop CFD codes to solve fluid dynamics problems, or, you can try to make use of some existing commercial codes. But the goal is the same, that is, to solve fluid dynamics problems on computer. (7). Now you are facing the fun part of the problem. That is : no one really knows whether a fluid dynamics problem has a solution or not. And even if it does, there is no guarantee that a solution can be easily found. Assuming that you are very lucky to have a solution, you still don not know that the solution is real or not. (8). These should answer your questions -1,-2,-3,-4. I mean, if an engineer is getting a solution of unknown quality, then it is hard to call him an engineer at all. (9). So, CFD is still largely a research field. A field where researchers are trying to develop the computational mesh, numerical solution algorithms, turbulence models to solve (simulate) fluid dynamics problems on computer. (10). Since CFD is still largely research activities, you should be able to find CFD activities in a company's research department. (11). For some specific applications, CFD codes have been validated to do design work. For example, CFD has been routinely used in the aircraft aerodynamic designs, turbine engine designs, etc... But in those cases, CFD is not used alone. Traditional testing is still heavily involved in solving fluid dynamics problems. (12). I would strongly suggest that a step-by-step approach be taken in the pursue of CFD approach. After all, if you can not help the company to solve the specific fluid dynamic problems relevant to the operation of the company, then the CFD project and work is not going to survive at all. (13). It is somewhat like the Internet. On one hand it is unlimited, while on the other hand, if the information is not there (if the solution is not there), the seemingly unlimited Internet is just nothing. (14). So, the issue is: it depends on whether the CFD solution one will be looking for in the future is going to be there or not (to him). That will also determine the fate of a company investing in CFD, both as the developers or as the users.