ABSTRACT
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is the numerical prediction of the distributions of velocity, pressure, temperature, concentration, and other relevant properties throughout the computational domain of interest in the flow field. Since its infancy in 1960s, CFD technology has advanced significantly, benefiting from concurrent advances in computing power and technology. Once considered nearly impossible, numerical predictions of practical turbulent flows are now routinely performed using CFD, which remains the only method for computing time-dependent 3-D flows. Since the early 1980s, three key factors have accelerated the industrial use of CFD. The first is the emergence of multiple commercial CFD codes, which initially grew from the needs of specific industries such as the turbomachinery, chemical, and automobile industries. These codes eventually became general-purpose for usage in other industries. Second, the continuous reduction in design cost and cycle time drove industries to adopt CFD technology in their design practices to reduce their testing budget. Third, seeing the emerging industrial trend for the CFD technology, experimentalists and CFD technologists in universities started working as a team in their research activities, which further accelerated the growth in each area with significant benefits to industrial design and development.
