I wouldn't say it is limited to small companies, CFD is still where the inventors still run the big codes. Fluent has obviously done well in both a technical and a business sense, but if you look at phoenics you can see what happens when somone who believes in their own superiority trys to run a business (not that I am saying it is limited to CHAM of course). I have met a fair few of the founders of CFD and a fairly high percentage are incredibly arrogant and believe they are masters of all creation and everyone should stare in wonder!

problem is.. it takes a lot of effort to become an expert in CFD but the industry is still in it's infancy as per bussiness is concerned

Can some one throw some light on what is going to happen to CFD as a career in next 15-20 years

>Can some one throw some light on what is going to happen to CFD as a career in next 15-20 years

less development, more application and support (we've seen that already and it will go on), more mergers (seen some of that, too), more integration with other fields... i.e. more of the same... my hypothesis with current CFD development is: most of so-called "development" is already running around in circles, re-inventing the same wheel in minor technical varieties, creating new combinations of established methods, not much real innovation (I consider advances in modelling of flow physics as CFD innovation, not advances in computer science). Time is ripe for new ideas.

By the way, the friendly discussion about who is getting the biggest piece of the cake (manager or employee, Indian or Englishman) is kind of irrelevant. How many people do you know who are into CFD for the money? Show me one and I show you a sad idiot. Happy are those who do the things they love doing, and happen to get a compensation for it that allows for a comfortable life. Anything on top of that is just icing on the cake: Really necessary only on a bad tasting cake!

Mani,

People end up on a career path at a relatively young age, often long before they realise how much life can cost.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with people wanting to move around to find the job that will pay them the maximum amount. They are doing a career that they enjoy, but likely weren't as well informed about the complexities of life when they made that choice. What these guys in London are saying is that they don't even make enough to have a comfortable life. That is a ridiculous position for a well educated professional to be in.

The problem with the development of CFD is that it is considered very much a Science, even though in practical terms, a CFD developer is nothing more than a glorified code monkey. If one is willing to do programming for a good wage, there are way, way better alternatives than programming CFD, such as investment banking, derivatives etc.

It's an interesting paradox that these CFD developers are performing a very complicated task, yet they get paid comparatively poorly for doing it. Programmers in The City get paid fortunes for coding much more simple problems, and it seems that the tag of "Science" associated with CFD inhibits the payscale. Of course, commercial CFD wages are constrained by the success of the product, and the number of sales of the program, but I think there is a general trend of underpayment in the field. Indeed, entry level (i.e. post phd) employees are starting to get paid less than postdoctoral researchers who continue in research after their PhD finishes - CFD companies may find it very hard to recruit from the academic market in the future.

In terms of the market pool of employees, CFD companies who are migrating to c++ are making a very grave error, as no academic institutions that I know of use c++ as the language of choice for research codes - it isn't worth the academic establishments' time to train someone in c++, as the likelihood is that the student will clear off to a highly-paid job elsewhere. Those who do c++ at University (i.e. computer science students) will not have the mathematical background to produce good CFD code. There are far more c++ jobs out there than there are skilled workers, and the relatively low salaries offered by CFD firms will not attract good c++ programmers to their company.

> I consider advances in modelling of flow physics as CFD innovation, not advances in computer science

And there's the kicker. Most advances in CFD techniques come from academia, and there are very few academics who are interested in Euler and RANS methods. LES, DES and DNS are coming to the fore, and combined with modelling advances (such as FDF for chemically reacting and combusting flows), much more insight is gained into actual physical processes numerically than ever before.

Industrial CFD is often seen as a quick and dirty process for designers, and therefore most industrial CFD users are only really interested in mean flow properties, and are definitely not prepared to wait any more than a few days for simulation results. Industry won't start to use advanced unsteady methods in a serious way until the computational power is there to do it in a similar time-frame as to what is achievable now with RANS/Euler. As a knock-on effect, CFD software houses won't invest in these methodologies until their customers want it, and must therefore look to other means to justify new releases of their products.

Mani,

You are self-righteousas as always...

With all this having been said, are we any closer to to understanding the flow regime where turbulence begins to show, up till say 90% speed of sound?

Are we not just more efficiently painting pretty pictures, that we do not yet fully understand?

CFD's next breakthrough will come when we *understand* turbulence. The game is not yet over, folks.

desA

Oh oh,

You're gona' get letters!

Thanks!

>What these guys in London are saying is that they don't even make enough to have a comfortable life

I didn't understand it that way, but if that's the case I sympathize. I don't think a Xmas bonus will make all the difference, then.

I was suggesting that the current state of CFD is nearing saturation (or stagnation) of continuous improvement, but you are right: that doesn't mean we're done. It means we're stuck! If scientific progress is the result of a combination of continuous evolution and a few radical ideas, I think we could use some of the latter right now.

Nicely put, Mani... We are indeed *stuck* & are desperately in need of a few academic breakthroughs.

About time for a 'desperation think-tank', methinks! It would be a wonderful thing to get the world's most accomplished cfd thinkers - conservative & progressive, & using lateral thinking (de Bono) open up a few hundred research avenues. The refiners can then apply their refining skills in whittling down to the few most likely candidates. We are not going to get there using the current 'closed room' approach.

Unfortunately, many of the current Journals seem to be more like 'idea killers' than 'idea explorers'. This is the single largest defect in the current 'scientific method' approach, as I see it. (Apologies if I offended anyone).

desA

All this talk reminds me of a vounteering organisation i joined that time. We had get together every week. Lots of people will come and they will talk all things like, what we shall do , what we need , where are we stuck etc etc. But when there was work, all these 'talker' were very rare to find.

Its easy to go to forums and cretisize the current situations, and find fault with it. (probably I am also one of such person, since I am writing here). Its very difficult to really do something creative and improve things. If we all try to do something, there won't be any need to cretisize.

I am trying to do my part, trying to work on improving immersed boundary method. (it might be unsuccessful, but I would be happy to at least have tried).

For the record, zxaar, I currently research on average 8 hours per day (often up to 18h). I have up to 3 computers running simulations at any one time. So, some of us also 'walk the talk'.

Working in isolation leads to 'silo development', whereas lateral thinking encourages free interchange of ideas & open exploration - without premature challenge. The current 'scientific method' tends to, in general, encourage the former approach - unfortunately - whether by design, or as a fault of human nature.

I've been in both worlds... As can be seen by the open nature of most of my postings. This is done to encourage & stimulate thought exploration

desA

Please do not take it personally my comment was not to you (though I wrote it after reading your post) it was for majority of people (who do not do anything but critisize).

I give you another example, Jonas started CFD-WIki, how many people make contributions to it??? There are many people who come to cfd-online, and many times complain that there is no help available etc etc, but have they added anything to Wiki to help others.

In life its easy to talk, but doing actually something is very difficult. This is what I wanted to say. (there are people on both sides, and this is why there is some development)

Thanks zxaar - some good food for thought.

Publication mostly is about quantity , contacts and politics.I have searched for some topics for weeks and collected more garbage than what I have at home.They need to reduce the number of journals.

hi guys, just wanna say that: be glad that you guys got CFD jobs and your country has ppl who is good in the software and uses it for real purpose. In my country (spore) CFD is a sad scene. It is only reserved for top end institutions (gov) and for ppl with masters or phd. Other than that, the job is very much rare outside, and even if u work as a cfd engineer, your work will always be critized by ppl who know not much abt it