CFD Online Logo CFD Online URL
www.cfd-online.com
[Sponsors]
Home > Forums > General Forums > Main CFD Forum

Research areas in Fluid Dynamics/CFD with potentially significant commercial payoffs?

Register Blogs Members List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Reply
 
LinkBack Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Old   March 6, 2010, 01:18
Default Research areas in Fluid Dynamics/CFD with potentially significant commercial payoffs?
  #1
Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Australia
Posts: 65
Rep Power: 16
RossFS is on a distinguished road
The reason for posing this question is to work out which research areas to avoid or head towards if doing a PhD and also in regards to which sorts of companies to be chasing work with if not taking a PhD.

I know at my university and in Australia, Hypersonics is on area which is attracting funding, but from what I gather, its applications are only for rockets and missiles which don't appeal to me (due to the lack of applicability of the work to more commonly used items).

DARPA appears to be keen to fund research done on:
*high maneuverability propulsion systems in water
*high speed underwater vehicles
*revolutionary drag reduction technologies

Current stuff of interest is race car/automotive aerodynamics, turbulence modelling, issues with water flows. Although I'm not sure if any of these have much potential to "pay the bills"/ be profitable areas of work or research.

Money is not the issue in regards to financial reward, more a case of being "employable" or being able to research in a field that isn't struggling for funding.
RossFS is offline   Reply With Quote

Old   March 6, 2010, 13:34
Default
  #2
Senior Member
 
John Chawner
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Fort Worth, Texas, USA
Posts: 275
Rep Power: 18
jchawner is on a distinguished road
Hello Ross:

Something I'd like to see studied more is "what defines a good grid?" In other words, for a given solver, parameters of interest (e.g. drag), and level of accuracy how do you make a mesh that supports that computation? Can it be determined a priori? Or is it a posteriori? Adaptive? Adjoint?

Also, the most important thing to me regarding a PhD is whether the candidate has done good work. I would not be too concerned about choosing a topic that is "hot". For better or worse, the way funded research goes up and down, what's hot today is cold tomorrow.

Best of luck with your research.
__________________
John Chawner / jrc@pointwise.com / www.pointwise.com
Blog: http://blog.pointwise.com/
on Twitter: @jchawner
jchawner is offline   Reply With Quote

Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
here open research unstructured fluid solver Gonski Main CFD Forum 1 August 9, 2008 23:49
Terrible Mistake In Fluid Dynamics History Abhi Main CFD Forum 12 July 8, 2002 09:11


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 23:19.