$ 53,900 (US) for CFD?
 

1) I read through a paper on Tesla Model S CFD analysis out of China.
2) They mentioned:
* a 120-core server.
* kappa-epsilon turbulence model
* and SIEMENS STAR-CCM+ software
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Online, DELL Computer is offering a 120-core, 512-Gb unit for $ 4,000 ( US )
............................................... a 120-core, 1-Tb unit for $ 6,000 ( US )
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The Kappa-Epsilon turbulence model is available, free, online.
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It looks like, you can't get a direct price from SIEMENS, without going through a salesperson. ( It was the same for Dassault's Exa POWERFLOW ).
I did find an invoice online, from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which purchased the STAR-CCM+ for $ 49,900 (US).
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Another fly in the ointment is, that one must have the data cloud for any specific vehicle, to input into the program.
The Chinese investigators had a Tesla, which was laser-scanned to create the data cloud.
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A single iteration required 3-hours, 25-minutes run time.
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Any modification of interest would require its own additional data cloud.
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The computer sounds cheap. One hour at Haus Racing's moving floor tunnel would pay for the small DELL computer.
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With something like 36,000 EcoModder members, we might swing enough donations for the software. A cheap cup of coffee per member.

I've got a spare Dell R740 and Tesla P100 GPU laying around. Don't mind the power consumption currently as we need the heat anyhow.

Apparently I'm a Siemens employee now. Employee pricing?

Interesting... There is an online CFD forum.

https://www.cfd-online.com/Wiki/K-epsilon_models

One can acquire a point cloud with a smart phone. A render-farm of ARM Cortex-A72 4-core compute modules would be $30 x (120/4) = $900 plus supporting hardware.

Admittedly, the DELL system probably has loaded-up PCI-e slots. But having the RAM distributed over the SOCs has to reduce latency, no?

If the Smartmatic/Dominion kerfluffle has taught us anything, it's the importance of Free and Open Source software.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simcenter_STAR-CCM%2B sez there exists a Linux version. I can find mention of the COMOS site licensing mechanism, but I haven't dug deeper, it's too sunny outside.

EcoModder.com Statistics Members: 31,260, Active Members: 328

Aerohead. I was told you only ever advise people to use your template. You are blowing my mind. It's almost like someone is trying to spread misinformation on this site. You should really advise people that ten surface pressure readings will suffice to establish whether a mod has lowered drag. That's where the real money is.


Disclaimer: This post is meant to be humorous, however, it will probably fail at it's stated goal. If you have no sense of humour please disregard.

readings
 

There's a research paper online about the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo and VGs. They executed hundreds of pressure readings on the boot alone! Real high-resolution. A nice scientific benchmark.;)

https://www.cfd-online.com/Wiki/Best...automotive_CFD

A fertile field waiting to be sown.

Watched a fascinating video on the development of CFD, its limitations and potential. Warning. There are depictions of a lot of transonic studies of NACA wing template 0012. NoT aNoTheR TemPlaTE!!!1!

Its from 2014 so not up to date but interesting, nonetheless.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaH91P665PI

His conclusion is the same point I made in another thread, Moore's Law isn't enough to bridge the mesoscale gap.

Have you looked into OpenVDB?
"sparse volumetric data... a hierarchical data structure and related functions" It's brilliant under the hood a sparse, shallow inverted B-tree structure and each data point can carry attributes like pressure, temperature, momentum & etc.

Blender has OpenVDB and a physics engine. I struggle with just the modeling, but all the animation rigging, rendering and video compositing needed are in there.

....meanwhile, I'm needing to figure out how to update Blender from 2.79 to 2.91 on my ARM system. I figured out the array modifier — you have to rotate an empty (obviously :))

No one has mentioned OpenFOAM?

I know nothing about CFD (except that I see a huge amount of amateur stuff on the web that is obviously quite wrong eg in calculated Cd figures) but I know of an aerodynamicist using a professional(?) version of OpenFOAM.

Maybe I'm just dumb, but no one has quite explained how you develop the shape of your car to model in CFD - 3D scanning?

OpenFoam is here.

Sorry. I didn't go that deep in the prior post OpenFOAM appears here in the CFD Wiki:

https://www.cfd-online.com/Wiki/What...nFOAM_.28OF.29

The pipeline from image capture to usable model involves re-topologizing. An example.

Intro to Retopology in Blender - Course Teaser

Usually you can buy a 3d model of your car, or find it for free on the various repositories.

Another way is to take a measurement to your car from a plane, say a garage ceiling, take a measurement every 5-10cm along the centreline, do the same thing 5cm to the left, and then again until the whole left side is complete. You then have multiple 2D slices of your car that you interpolate between to get the correct shape. Do it every few cm if the detail is more complex.

CFD doesn't need huge supercomputers contrary to what aerohead believes, I know people who run open-foam on middle range laptops. Open-foam is free. If anyone is using price or processing power as an excuse for not doing CFD then they are ignorant to the many ways of doing it.

Usually you can buy a 3d model of generically similar to your car, or find it for free on the various repositories.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=3d+capture...deos&ia=videos

3D capture is free on a smart phone. This generates a triangulated point cloud. The re-topo reduces the number of faces by orders of magnitude and reorders to quads. This reduces the task calculating the physics.

Interesting article on CFD here.

The comments by Tomer (Tom) Avraham suggest the Navier-Stokes equations still need the insight that Steinmetz brought to Maxwell's equations.
This was also the conclusion of the national intelligence agencies. Open sources are more fruitful than covert sources.