What is computational fluid dynamics?
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a numerical modelling technique that uses algorithms to solve the Navier-Stokes equations, which define all manners of fluid flow. Here, ‘fluid flow’ isn’t simply restricted to liquids, but extends to gases, and the movement of solids through fluids, as well as particles kinematics, heat transfer, acoustic modelling, chemical compositions, amongst many other disciplines.
At the design phase, CFD allows the optimisation of geometry before manufacture of a physical prototype; in mature products, CFD can be utilised to troubleshoot operational issues. Compared to traditional methods of validation, the overall time and expense of product development can be greatly reduced, as simulations can easily be repeated for a wide range of parameters.
Jesmond Engineering is one of the UK’s top computational fluid dynamics companies and provides extensive CFD consultancy services, using high performance servers to carry out simulations. Typically, our workflows involve the optimisation of conceptual designs through to the formulation and modelling of complete 3D structures. Our CFD specialist engineers are able to conduct static and transient simulations for 2D and 3D geometries and optimisation studies over a range of core CFD competencies, including:
- Turbulence modelling, through RANS or LES regimes.
- Multiphase flows, including discrete phase regimes.
- Species transport, mixing and reactions.
- Incompressible and compressible flow regimes.
- Thermal analysis, from thermally dependent material properties to system-level heat exchange.
- Particulate deposits, pick-up, erosion and behavioural analysis.
- Custom boundary conditions, surface or body forces to model specific rheological behaviour.
We typically conduct our simulations on Ansys Fluent, the comprehensive industry-leading CFD software platform for fluid simulations. If additional CAD services are required to first generate a geometry representing your problem, we utilise Solidworks. We are also happy to work with other CFD/CAD software platforms.
Computational Fluid Dynamics explained
As one of the UK’s most experienced CFD consultancies, we are able to share a number of computational fluid dynamics examples to illustrate how the ‘real world’ application of this specialism has helped our clients to optimise processes and product design.