Mentor Blogs

After a week of uncertainty, the skies above Europe have finally opened (albeit slowly) to air traffic. Thanks to this pesky plume of volcano ash from Iceland, all of Europe has come to a complete standstill. At a micro level, I have been enjoying the quiet — no jet engines screeching overhead every few minutes.  At a macro level, this couldn’t have happened at a worst time for a recovering world economy.  … Read More

CFD, Design Engineer, Airflow, FloEFD, Flow Field

I love gadgets but I hate cables – they make things so untidy. As a result, anything that can go wireless in our house has – even our light switches are on remote control. I used to think this was just plain silly when we were going through the retrofit until I realized I could turn off the kitchen lights from the comfort of our sofa. I’ve only used this “power” once but I tell you knowing that I can … Read More

Physical Prototype, CFD, Consumer Electronics, Automotive, Quality, EMI shielding, Medical, Design Engineer, Thermal, Electromagnetic Interference

I remember watching the first space shuttle launch back in 1981.  And almost 29 years later I still remember the sense of awe I felt when watching it take off. It felt like the whole country collectively held its breath and exhaled when it landed safely a few days later. It was a sight to behold and for the first time in my life it made me realize that Sci-Fi in this case was not fiction anymore.  Over … Read More

Processing Plant, Pressure, Valves, CFD, Design Engineer, Cavitation, Water Treatment Plan, Medical Equipment, Pipes, Flow, Fuel Delivery

Double-time.  Instantaneous.  Faster than the speed of light. No… these words do not describe the speed by which I reach a conclusion (although my husband would beg to differ). These words refer to our generation wanting things. We want it now. We can’t wait. We no longer purchase a DVD online and wait for it to arrive – at a touch of a button we stream the movie and watch it immediately. Forget about … Read More

Physical Prototype, CFD, Design Engineer, CAD-Embedded, Oil and Gas, Optimize, Drill Bit, FloEFD

Don’t worry… I’m not going Sci-Fi on you. I’m talking about reaction forces. What do I mean by reaction forces? Well, when there is a relative motion between a solid object and a surrounding fluid, a force will be placed on the solid due to the pressure variation over the surface of the solid. This force is caused by the change in speed and direction of the fluid. For example, we see reaction forces … Read More

Safety, Reaction Forces, Design Engineer, FloEFD, CFD, Quality, R&D, Physical Prototype

While de-icing my car this morning, I was listening to the radio. The announcer said that we are expecting more snow in London this week. The news sent shivers down my spine but not for the reason you may think. As if the ice on the road and pedestrians jumping in front of moving cars isn’t bad enough, we may have a new problem to deal with: it seems that LED traffic lights may have a problem dealing … Read More

Design Engineer, LED, CFD, Thermal

I’m the first to admit that I’m no Julia Child – but from time to time I get the baking bug … especially around the holidays. I love the smell of holiday baking… cinnamon and cloves and mix them in with the smell of a live Christmas tree … divine.  Unfortunately holiday baking is a bit of a hassle because I have to keep a keen watch over the goodies in the oven and turn them around to make sure they … Read More

Visualize, CFD, Airflow, Flow Field, Design Engineer, Fan-Assisted Oven

Flow field around an F1 car. Image courtesy of Voxdale. For the past few days, I’ve been on the road. Flying to the States is always an adventure … especially during late fall. Air turbulence isn’t much fun – somehow the flight always gets the bumpiest when they serve drinks/food. Go figure. Anyway, during this last flight, I sat next to the window. The flight from San Francisco to Portland was perfectly … Read More

Design Engineer, Flow Field, CFD, Fluid Flow

During a recent phone call with one of my favorite reporters, we talked about the difference between easy-to-use and dumbed-down software. We went on to talk about why easy to use CFD software doesn’t’ mean that it has been dumbed down — after all, easy to use software can still be very powerful. But ease-of-use has gotten a bad rap out there. Some people assume that because a software tool is easy … Read More

Design Engineer, Heat Transfer, CFD

When budgets are tight most managers think about the same thing before they sign on the dotted line:  is this new tool going to help us get more done faster/better/smarter? If the answer is no then like most managers I don’t make the investment. Instead I focus on an activity that’s going to give me the best return on investment (ROI). That’s why last week I talked about time compression being … Read More

Time Compression, CFD, CAD-Embedded, Process Compression, ROI, Design Engineer, Mesh

I’m rather proud of our products so whenever I speak with people I have a tendency to talk about features and functions… the juicy stuff. So it’s easy to forget that one of the main benefits of simulation is time compression. In the not too distant past, most companies used to do analysis only after the physical prototyping phase. The design team would create a cool design, the proposed design would … Read More

R&D, Valve, Cavitation, CFD, CAD-Embedded, Water Hammer, Hydraulics, Physical Prototype, Design Engineer

The smoke was visible even in Santa Monica. If you’ve been wondering why I’ve been so quiet for the past couple of weeks, the answer is simple: I’d gone to Southern California to visit my family. Because LA was experiencing a heatwave (the wildfires weren’t helping much either),  I spent a fair amount of my time at the beach. As I sat there with my toes dipped in the Pacific ocean, I had a fair amount … Read More

CIMdata, Design Engineer, CFD, PLM

From time to time I lurk around CFD related forums – just to see what people are talking about. A couple of weeks ago I found a posting on the subtleties of meshing and its relation to accuracy. The discussion rapidly became quite heated – there were some folks who believed that unless simulation gives you 100% accuracy then it is useless while others didn’t believe that accuracy is the only factor … Read More

Mesh, FloVENT, CFD, Design Engineer, Accuracy, FloEFD

Cuba Gooding Jr’s conversation with Tom Cruise in Jerry McGuire became the mantra of a whole generation. Show _me_ the money. Your manager no doubt says the same thing to you all the time but in different guises: Can we improve product performance/functionality? Can we reduce the cost of producing this product? Can we cut the budget without sacrificing quality? And let’s not forget … Read More

Improve Quality, Improve Functionality, Reduce Cost, FloEFD, Fluid Flow, CFD, Shortened Time to Market, Design Engineer, Fluid Dynamics

A while ago I heard something that made me tilt my head to the side… similar to that iconic image of Nipper, the Jack Russell terrier, listening to his master’s voice on a phonograph (I was going to post the image but international copyright rules are rather complicated. If you really want to see the image, then please go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nipper). Anyway, someone jokingly referred to … Read More

Fluid Flow, Design Engineer, CFD, ROI, FEA, Fluid Dynamics