CFD in brief

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is the science of predicting fluid flow,

heat transfer, mass transfer, chemical reactions, and related phenomena by
solving the mathematical equations which govern these processes using a
numerical process. The technique is very powerful and spans a wide range of
industrial and academic interests. Some notable examples of applications
include

Aerodynamics of aircrafts: lift and drag

Hydrodynamic aspects of ship: flow field around ship
Turbomachinery
Offshore industry
Thermodynamics: HVAC analysis, combustion

Why CFD is important?

As a multicolored design tool
CFD has become an integral preliminary design tool to analysis and
predict a particular concept, which otherwise would not be possible by
means of manual calculations or experimental test. Companies and
academic institutions are progressively -deploying CFD in R&D to either
predict the performance of new designs or to optimize the existing ones.
How does CFD works
CFD involves, in general, three elements:(i) a pre-processor, (ii)a solver, (iii)a
post-processor.
Pre-processor
It consists of the input of a flow problem to a CFD program by means of
an operator-friendly interface and the subsequent transformation of this into
a form suitable for use by the solver. Generally, it involves

Understanding the problem and how to approach to solution

Creating the computational domain
Grid(mesh) generation
Defining the material properties and boundary conditions

Geometry is usually created by either an additional software (e.g. Solidworks,

Inventor, Rhinoceros) or modeler that comes together with CFD software.
The same goes for the mesh generation. Over 50% of the time spent in a
CFD analysis is devoted to the pre-processing.
Solver

A solver usually deployed one of the three numerical techniques: finite

difference, finite element and spectral methods. In general, a solver
(i)Integrate the governing equations of the fluid flow over the control
volumes of the domain
(ii)Discretization: conversion of the resulting integral equations into a
system of algebraic equations
(ii)Solution of these equations by an iterative method
CFD codes contains discretization techniques suitable for the treatment of
the key transport phenomena, convection (transport due to fluid flow ) and
diffusion(transport due to variations of from point to point) as well as
source terms(associated with the creation or destruction of

) and the rate

of change with respect to time.The underlying physical phenomena are

complex and non-linear so an iterative solution approach is required .

Geometry
Preparation

Physics

Mesh

Select Geometry
Heat Transfer ON/OFF Unstructured
(automatic/
manual)

Geometry ParametersCompressible
ON/OFF

Reports

Post-Processing

Steady/ Forces Report

Contours
Unsteady (lift/drag, shear stress, etc)

Iterations/
Steps

XY Plot

Vectors

Convergent Limit

Verification

Streamlines

Viscous Model

Precisions
(single/
double)

Validation

Boundary Conditions

Numerical Scheme

Domain Shape and Size

Flow properties

Initial Conditions

Structured
(automatic/
manual)

Solve