CFD Applications

This section details the few of the numerous industries in which CFD has become indispensable.

CFD has become an indispensable tool in diverse industries for a variety of applications.

Aerospace Industries

The development of CFD in its formative years was mostly driven by the Aerospace industry. From the initial design and development phases of an aircraft the application of CFD is prominent in various modules of aerodynamics design such as configuration design, estimation of aerodynamic loads, estimation of stability derivatives and performance of engines. The design and development of today’s state of the art missiles and launch vehicles would be unimaginable without CFD.


Figure 1.

Automotive Industries

The fuel efficient and stream lined automobiles in today’s market are results of extensive use of CFD analysis. For example, CFD tools play a big part in external aerodynamics, the engine coolant jacket, under hood thermal management and passenger comfort.


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Civil Engineering

CFD is used for building aerodynamics, hydraulic systems, aeroacoustics, fire and smoke simulation resulting in improved safety features at lower costs.


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Naval Engineering

CFD is a major tool in solving hydrodynamic problems associated with harbors, ships, submarines, torpedoes, oil exploration platforms, and so on.


Figure 5.

HVACR Engineering

CFD is used for heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration applications. CFD analysis gives a detailed description of fluid flow, heat transfer and chemical species transfer in HVAC systems.


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Heavy Engineering

Heavy engineering is another industry that has a strong presence of CFD applications. CFD provides greater insight for the design of products, such as earth moving machinery, cranes and excavators


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Chemical Industries

CFD applications in the chemical industry involve combustion, mixing, multiphase flows and cavitation for evaluating the accurate heat/mass transfer parameters.


Figure 9.

Electronic Industries

CFD analysis can provide great value in predicting temperature distribution over a chip and the deposition rate therefore reducing the number of experiments.


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Medical Industries

The application of CFD in the medical industry includes analysis of blood circulation, impact of artery blockage, air circulation in lungs, and so on.


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Aside from the conventional industries mentioned above, CFD is also making strides into newer platforms, such as movies, computer graphics and food processing.