CFD - Preface
CFD - Preface
CFD - Preface
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), once the domain of academics, postdoctoral researchers, or trained specialists, is now progressively becoming more
accessible to graduate engineers for research and development as well as
design-oriented tasks in industry. Mastery of CFD in handling complex flow
and heat industrial problems is becoming ever more important. Competency
in such a skill certainly brings about a steep learning curve for practicing engineers, who constantly face extreme challenges to come up with solutions to
fluid flow and heat transfer problems without a priori knowledge of the basic
concepts and fundamental understanding of fluid mechanics and heat transfer.
Todays engineers are almost certainly geared more toward the use of commercial CFD codes, such as ANSYS-CFX, ANSYS-FLUENT, or STAR-CD.
Without proper guidance, the use of these software packages poses risks likened
to placing potent weaponry in the hands of poorly trained soldiers. There is
every possibility of users with inadequate training causing more harm than good
through flawed interpretations of results produced through such packages. This
makes it ever more important that a sound knowledge of CFD be acquired. Furthermore, a changing workplace environment has imposed constraints on users
in discerning the pitfalls of CFD by osmosis and through frequent failures. The
number of users who have had the luxury of being fully equipped and who
are conscious of the limitations of CFD from their own experiences is fast
dwindling.
The purpose of this book is to offer CFD users a suitable text pitched at
the right level of assumed knowledge. CFD is a mathematically sophisticated
discipline and the authors aim in this book has been to provide simple-tounderstand descriptions of fundamental CFD theories, basic CFD techniques,
and practical guidelines. It has never been our aim to overwhelm the reader
with excessive mathematical and theoretical illustrations of computational
techniques. Every effort has been made to discuss the material in a style to
capture the readers attention. The dominant feature of the present book is
to maintain practicality in understanding CFD. In our lecturing experience
on CFD, we have identified what it takes to present elementary concepts to
initiate the student. This book incorporates specially designed intuitive and
systematic worked-out CFD examples to enhance the learning process, and
it provides students with examples for practice to better comprehend the basic
principles. It is hoped that this approach will accomplish the purpose of offering techniques to beginners who are more focused on the engineering practice
of CFD.
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