Typical personality of a CFD engineer??
 

So I'm an undergraduate engineering student and there's a large number of experienced CFD guys at my university. I've always been curious as to what type of personality you guys have?
I'm not sure if it's me, but the CFD guys at my university are really kind and don't seem introverted as I perceived them to be.
Could I get some of your opinions?

You can bet CFD people are very patient... I mean, if every run lasts no less than 4hs, then you gotta have Buddha's patience. Maybe that's the reason why they are not introverted too. Long simulations are a very good excuse to kill time in a pub or disco while you wait for the results :D.
Of course I'm kidding, but as far as it goes for aeronautical engineers (though not the same as CFD engineers, but let's say it's close) I can asure you they're very calmed, healthy and not prone to smoking or drinking. I heard once that left-handed are more common among aero engineers than any other engineering (not dominant though), and it's stated that left-handed are more into art. Also, according to my experience, you're more likely to find women there than in mechanical engineering, despite the two share a quite big ground.
Of course the facts can vary from uni to uni and country to country. I'm from Argentina, so it'll be funny if similar behaviour is found in other lands.

I personally prefer engineering guys, they are very intelligent and cute.

This is a very funny comment to me. I'm not a smoker nor a drinker, calm and healthy, and I enjoy the art side of CFD (however, I'm right-handed!). We don't get an overwhelming amount of female aeronautical engineers in the U.S. and it's about even with mechanical engineering.

Haha great comment :D! I second the previous statements about people in engineering/science and especially numerical aerodynamicists, although I am right handed.

From my experience as a student, they are always willing to help and have great passion for what they do. For the statistics, I am from the Netherlands ;).

it's funny to find the common personality share with the aeroengieers.i smoke sometime. i find it's difficult for beginner to entry this field.and i am in this bad condition.:confused:

I don't smoke myself but the CFD people around me do. I am in the belief that they really like visualizing buoyant plume flow around themselves all the time.

Takuya

I think I have to start smoking right now...:D
but really, sometimes the flow makes me curious. They got out and start swirling and stretching around and got into my lung...<cough>:mad:

Ah... the occupational hazards of CFD. Result of exposure to the rituals of getting used to error msgs after hrs of work, high intake of coffee n cigis, and weekly brain resets with booze. Only so much a body can take. most ppl will fit CAVT's profile by the time they're CFD engineers :D

Early symptoms would be realisation that ur turnaround for a day is more like 48hrs not 24

Hi Guys,

This is a great thread to let the world know about the CFD engineers, but unfortunately only fellow CFD engineers visit this site!!!! Darren, your comment on hours in a day for CFDians is very true.....

How about creating a fuzzy logic about what a personality wants!!! and what it will get depending on the actions which it does!!! Wouldn't that be great....

number of women in cfd
 

i work in the USA. i find only a small amount of women in the cfd engineering world. we have two in german office of our company-- that's rare. when i have been to big user conferences for STAR, ADINA, and such, there are only occasional woman engineer.

Well, I'm a woman CFD engineer - the only one in my office and the only one in school when I went back for my Master's after staying home for 15 years raising my kids (have only been working now for 2 months). I can tell you that there are fewer women engineers in school now than there were when I was in school for my undergraduate degree in the 80's. I find it interesting but frustrating as well, especially when my boss doesn't understand that CFD isn't cookie-cutter when it's a difficult problem to model.

wow.. a lounge area! and it's full of cfd engineers! cool!

i say you gotta like computer science and physics... if you slightly dislike one of the two you'll h8 cfd, that's for sure!

in brazil there was this first physics engineering course which started in 1999. I'm from class 2003. Every1 would wask me: where do you work? what are you gonna do with all these physics, math, computations, etc...?? well here i am.. and i must confess.. working with cfd is rly rewarding (when you get it to converge :D) .. as previously stated the complexity of the area ensures you'll never get bored and will always get it better next time, regardless of you xp



Cheers!!! :D :D

That description fits me perfectly. I'm an aero engineering undergrad, calm as heck, don't smoke and don't drink. lol though I'm not too sure if I'll be as healthy as I am now once I'm knee-deep in my project that involves CFD. Hope I can make it out alive!

I smoke on and off for many years. One of the attractions is all of the neet fluid dynamics that is visualized:)!

Haha, I don't smoke. But I like doing some experiments with liquids (beer running down the throat). So to say, applied fluid dynamics.

And patient? Yes, of course. But only until the client asks for results and I have to tell him again and again "I'm sorry, it diverged again. You will not have any results earlier than in three months." That's the point when he wants to kick my ass, and I want to say "kiss my ass". But of course, I'm staying calm and don't tell the client what I would like to say. And I will try a different approach and patiently wait for the job to diverge :D

I love surfing. Any other CFD Surfers? It is Fluid Dynamics, after all :)

investigate your turbulent smoke
 

if you are a cfd engineer, it is not really a waste of time to watch the movements of smoke.

p.s.
i don't smoke

Thats a very nice thread and all posts are true at all.

For 3 years now I am interested in CFD - Simulations and make everything. Cover a donut with chocolate, simulate an karman vertex street, filling a bathtub with water, flood a bridge, simulate santa claus on his carriage ...

and look :) my day has round about 40 hours...

I love CFD and I can share all mentioned things above

Tobi

Well I observed that most of CFD engineers like simulation games like Age of Empires, Civilization, Anno, Stronghold and etc...

Do you agree with that? Personally, I've been in love with Age of Empires 2 since its birth. Ummm what a love! :)

Regards