Just the facts...

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 CFD as Color For Directors and followed it with “it gives you lots of pretty pictures that make company directors happy but it’s so hard to use that unless you’re an expert you can’t use it.”  This may have been the case a few years back but that’s certainly not the case anymore.

I speak with design engineers on a regular basis. Firstly, it really annoys me when people underestimate design engineers by saying they can’t do CFD – “they” (whoever they are) used to say the same thing about design engineers doing finite element analysis (FEA) back in the 90’s and we all know how wrong “they” were. As subject-matter experts, design engineers are creating new products day in and day out. Because they are designing products that deal with heat transfer as well as air, liquid and gas flow they are already aware of the fluid dynamics portion of the puzzle; however, they aren’t experts in  using  CFD software.  Secondly, it’s been proven time and time again that CFD simulation is valuable – many of our customers have not only drastically shortened their time to market but also recovered their investment in the technology several times over.

Preparing Recommendations

Since I fancy myself as a rather sensible person (well at least 87% of the time), I like making informed decisions based on fact. And I tend to think others do too. So I’ll be using this forum to share stories on the successful adoption of CFD simulation software by design engineers with you. I promise this won’t be all marketing hoopla but rather fact-based information. And hopefully, these success stories will give you the information you need to bust a few myths!

Until next time,
Nazita

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