I have a general question that ive been thinking about for some time. Id be really grateful if some of you could help me out with it.

Im planning to get a PhD in fluid dynamics, with particular emphasis on computational fluid dynamics, I am yet to decide on a particular application of cfd (biotech or microfluidics for e.g) to work on for my thesis....i would like it to be an area with industrial relevance in 3-4yrs time. In this regard what applications of cfd do u think will be important in the industry in the years to come.

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated, Thanks

I have the same problem now.If I want to apply for PHD position about some calculation about ships or airplanes,what suggestions you have?Thanks!

Any emerging area in CFD will be mainly research oriented rather than application/industry oriented. You should better look at already developed areas in CFD...like automotive, aerospace, chip cooling, turbomachinery, etc. If you have preference of location, then find out what industries are present in that location.

A growing area in environmental engineering.

I agree that Environmental Engineering is cool!

Also Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) is an uprising field for complex processes in Chemical Engineering, breaking waves, ...

longwen

I think the difficult thing is in determining not only what is an emerging area but to me most importantly are their positions available in these areas.

If you are planning on staying in academics, then this is not as much of a concern. As long as you can solicit the funding you can bascially do what you want.

If you want to go into the commercial inductry, you have a more difficult decision. CFD market is somewhat small in comparison to other sectors of engineering.

From my experience, microfluidics (mems), bio are really big. I am seeing alot more attention in fluid structure interaction which has a huge place in the bio-medical field, eventually!