What if you could zoom into a CFD fluid dynamics simulation in the same way as a Google Map?It would certainly help engineers resolve complex flow features, and also target computing resource in critical regions of the fluid - possibly during the simulation.
Such an ambition is not new - indeed increased mesh resolution (or more technically h-refinement) in response to local flow field gradients has been available for some time.The challenge for many end users is that this requires iteration in their CFD workflow.
Now what if you could zoom into the CFD solution without needing a new mesh at all?Such a technology (also known as p-refinement) is becoming an industrial possibility thanks to ground-breaking work in the field of ‘high-order methods’, or HOMs.
Lead by Dr. Peter E Vincent and his team at Imperial College, HOMs technology is being used to demonstrate in-situ visualisation, leveraging the latest in GPU hardware from NVIDIA and the Piz Daint supercomputer at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre.
This work is being further industrialized by experts at The Centre for Modelling & Simulation (CFMS), a neutral not-for-profit specialist in engineering design. Working with high-tech SME Zenotech under the Innovate UK “Hyperflux” research project, we are bringing “zoomable” CFD simulation to industrial end users in aerospace, automotive, civil and renewable engineering.
The technology is also effective in accelerating CFD simulation - notoriously time consuming for large jobs - by working at multiple length scales simultaneously.Hyperflux is run as an Open Innovation project, and we are happy to provide access to the tools on the CFMS high performance computing system.
If you would like more information about High-order methods, Hyperflux or CFMS, contact us on 0117 907 1100 or email info@cfms.org.uk
