This month we continue our sneak peek of the next Caedium (v3) release. In other news, we have released a new, free GPL library for OpenFOAM®, posted a new tutorial, and added a couple of new blog posts.

Sneak Peek of an Info Tool Report in Caedium v3

Caedium v3 Sneak Peek: Info Tool

The next release of Caedium Professional and Builder add-ons will have a new Info tool in the Geometry Tool Palette. The Info tool will provide a detailed report of geometry, mesh, and physics information on any entity, as shown in the image above.

GPU Linear Solver Library for OpenFOAM

ofgpu is our free GPL library that provides GPU linear solvers for OpenFOAM. Sponsored by the Microsoft DPE team, the library targets NVIDIA CUDA devices on Windows, Linux, and (untested) Mac OS X. While this effort is still in the experimental stage, GPU acceleration holds the promise of providing significant speed up at relatively low cost and with low power consumption compared to other alternatives. If you want to try our ofgpu library with OpenFOAM, then we recommend that you use either a dedicated (i.e., not displaying graphics) high-performance NVIDIA graphics card or a TESLA card. Read more >>

New Tutorial: Flow Over a CO2 Dragster

We have posted a new tutorial that provides detailed instructions on how to set up a CFD simulation for a symmetrical car (CO2 dragster) with rotating wheels and a moving ground plane. Read more >>

Blog

Below are teasers for my latest blog posts.

Is CFD Flawed?

There is a high profile debate going on in the motor racing media and motor racing discussion forums that Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is flawed. The proof cited is the poor performance of Virgin Racing Formula 1 (VR F1) racecars in the 2010 F1 championship and repeated so far in this year's championship. Why is CFD deemed responsible for this sorry state of affairs? Because VR F1 have proclaimed that the aerodynamic design of its cars forgoes wind tunnel testing and only uses CFD. What if the CFD-only strategy is merely a symptom rather than the cause of the problems at VR F1? Read more >>

Barefoot Running: Springs, Dampers, and Pressure

I'm a little off topic with this post - more structural mechanics than fluid mechanics. Normal service will resume shortly, but in the mean time, I have to admit it - I'm a recovering barefoot runner. Recovering in the sense that no matter what I've tried up to now, whenever I run fast or long in barefoot shoes (oxymoron I know, bare with me) I end up with calf muscles that are so sore I can't run for days afterwards. Well I thought it was way past time to mine my engineering knowledge for some insight, and this is what I came up with. Read more >>

Notes

OpenFOAM is a registered trademark of OpenCFD and is unaffiliated with Symscape.