Dear all , Can anyone tell me if it is possible to run a CFD model on a laptop? I am thinking of buying a laptop but I would like to run CFD software on it. What is the best solution (without spending too much money), pentium M 740, INtel Core Duo, Centrino, Celeron? Can anyone give me some advice? I suppose I need minimum 1GB of RAM, am I right? Thanks xavier

Yes you can use a laptop for CFD but I wouldnt recomend it, certainly not as your primary solver of if you intend to do any sort of serious industrial studies

You could run CFD on mobile phone these days! You will have a 2D model and a lack of grid independence, but it is still possible!

In the lab where I did my PhD., a guy used his laptop for all of his CFD, so it is definitely possible. He was using an academic code which was very efficient, running a modern commercial solver on a laptop might not be as good an idea.

I've just made my Final Degree Project with Fluent+Gambit in a laptop. It is a Fujitsu-SIemens Amilo M3438G with a Pentium M @ 1.86GHz (Celeron configuration), 1Gb RAM DDR2 and 2x80Gb HDD SATA. Meshes up to 700.000 elements can be solved in 8hrs and 2nd order accuracy! RAM starts to get saturated in the limit of 750.000 - 800.000 elements (with 1Gb): if you want to make tests of grid independence, you should take into consideration a 2Gb of RAM laptop. Then, you would go up to 1.800.000 elements approx. (and 18hrs. calculation), I suppose.

Hope this helps. Bye!

Thanks very much! that's what I needed to know, I will try to find prices for this laptop you have used... I am doing a MSC in FEM and I am using a code for fluid dynamics from the university so it is not as complex as those as FLUENT, CFX etc, but the idea is to use these software in the future as well. Many thanks Xavier

De nada hombre!

Good luck with your Project.Bye!

If you necessarily need a portable computer then I would go for some with a "real" CPU. In a sense you can consider the celeron as being a gimped version of the centrino. 1 gig of ram is absolutely minimum if you run winXP (Linux is by far better here imho).

Perhaps buy a really cheap laptop and put money into a stationary that does all the computing (you could pre- and post-process on the laptop)? As I have stated before in this forum; laptops are too expensive to be good CFD computers. Don't base you calculations on them unless you have no other choice (or if you have all the money you need).

FP

Hello Xavier,

What are you planning to run? Method and grid size?

Do you need grid refinement/validation?

If it is a simple problem with an advanced in-house code then a decent laptop will do the job. You can do more than 2-3M points if you have an efficient code.

Good luck,

Mikel

PS: if you plan long runs and heavy in memory requirements you should get an insurance. Laptops are not designed to run for endless hours. Another downside of laptops is need for regular backups (if you travel a lot).