Status of U.S. wind tunnels

[Frank Lee]

Defying predictions, wind tunnels find new customers in autos, athletics

[gone-ot]

Quote: "the right answer for the right reason,”

Computer simulations and modelings are only as good as the 'approximations' coded into their software algorithms.

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

Quote: "the right answer for the right reason,”

Computer simulations and modelings are only as good as the 'approximations' coded into their software algorithms.

Kind of like the climate models that are always wrong.

[JRMichler]

CFD (computational fluid dynamics) models are only as good as the highly skilled analysts who use them. They spend a lot of time "verifying the model". This is analystspeak for adjusting the inputs until the model gives correct answers. The verification needs to be done on a model that is similar to the problem under study and where the solution is well known. Wind tunnels will not go away any time soon.

[freebeard]

The problem with CFD is modelling the air (or water). I think OpenVDB will go a long way toward improving that. It's already incorporated into Blender and Maya. CFD can't be far behind.