Talking CFD: Recent Episodes
CFD Engine
A podcast for self-confessed CFD nerds đ¤
A show where we geek out on CFD-related stuff, talk to founders about their CFD âjourneyâ & chat with industry experts about what CFD looks like in their world.
Itâs not technical, itâs never technical, but it is niche. So, if you know your lattice from your Boltzman & a discontinuous Galerkin doesnât sound like a medical condition, then youâre in the right place.
This is the show for you & you are most welcome đ
Itâs the last show of Season 04 (time flies when youâre podcasting) & Simon & I are back chatting about the most recent shows, the season just gone & our thoughts/plans for 2020:
- Simon reveals his ultra-personalised, CFD-powered, custom surfboard & custom wave idea #futurist đ¤
- Cloud HPC experiences including:
- AWS ParallelCluster - https://aws.amazon.com/hpc/parallelcluster/
- HPCBox from Drizti (a new one on me, but Simon says good things) - https://www.drizti.com/hpcbox.html
- We marvel at how Diabatix AI knows what to do & how it does it đ¤Ż
- Simon reassures me that the robots arenât coming for our jobs (yet) & that they might let us carry on meshing their ideas anyway
- We sketch out some of our plans for 2020 - but will they include more podcasts?
Links to our stuffâŚ
⢠Checkout Simonâs work at Upstream Applied Science, especially if you want help selecting the right engineering tool for the job - https://www.upstream-applied-science.com/
⢠Connect with Simon on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-hubbard-48b96310/
⢠If youâre looking for help navigating the tricky world of open-source CFD then checkout what Iâm doing at www.cfdengine.com
⢠Connect with me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinknowles/
Time for the last insight episode of the season - I hope you've enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed doing them?
In today's episode I had the pleasure of talking to Riccardo Rossi about combining his experience in fluid dynamics research with his passion for surfing and the intricacies of applying CFD to the design of surfboards.
We barely scratch the surface of this fascinating topic, but Riccardo introduces us to some of the challenges, including:
- relating performance in the "predictable" world of CFD with that on the unpredictable ocean wave
- using CFD to relate the "feel" of a board to it's fluid dynamics
- whether the insight from CFD can make you a better surfer
- using CFD as an attention-grabber in product marketing
Shownotes
- Connect with Riccardo on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/riccardo-rossi-a58a692b/
- Find out more about Riccardo's company - Red Fluid @ http://www.red-fluid.com/ and the work they've been doing in this area
- Follow them on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/RedFluidDynamics/) & Instagram(https://www.instagram.com/redfluiddynamics/) for more surf-related content
I've wanted to have a guest on the show to chat about artificial intelligence & machine learning in relation to CFD for a while now. It keeps coming up in other discussions but this is the first founder interview where I get to scratch the surface of this huge topic.
Today Iâm talking to Lieven Vervecken one of the founders of Belgian CFD startup Diabatix - mixing AI/ML with generative design, optimisation & traditional CFD methods to design a new breed of heat sinks.
Lieven fills us in on:
⢠their PhD-to-Business journey & the importance of early contact with (potential) customers ⢠how they operate their business somewhere in between software development house, consultancy & software-as-a-service - taking the best of all worlds ⢠what they mean by the baggage-laden terms, generative design & artificial intelligence ⢠why theyâre more than just a fancy optimisation tool
Check out the kind of thing weâre talking about here - https://youtu.be/D52fwUTf0GM
Shownotes
⢠Check out the Diabatix website - https://www.diabatix.com/ ⢠Or their YouTube channel for more visual examples of what they do - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQZXN5-UdJNrOmPOJhjmXTw ⢠Connect with Lieven on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lievenvervecken ⢠Or drop them an email at info@diabatix.com
Donât forget to let him know you heard him on the podcast đ
Itâs the last episode of 2019 & weâre introducing a new section of the show called âgrumpy old CFDistas get a bit bah humbug about stuffâ which may not become a regular feature.
Some of the things on our radar this episode includeâŚ
⢠Cybertruck simulations on LinkedIn ⢠In awe of Patrickâs CFD skills & PreonLabâs renderings ⢠the âimportanceâ of aerodynamics for battery electric vehicles (& the importance of not getting too ârant-yâ while podcasting) ⢠AWS clusters vs. SPH & the fight for control of Simonâs to-do list ⢠a few other shiny nuggets from the AWS conference r.e. CFD
Links to some things we mentioned
⢠NASA Turbulence Modelling Resource - https://turbmodels.larc.nasa.gov/ ⢠Discussion of Formula1ÂŽ doing CFD on AWS with a few details - https://www.zdnet.com/article/formula-1-turns-to-aws-to-develop-next-gen-race-car/ ⢠Slightly less enlightening but more entertaining talk from Rob Smedley about the above - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBX7lPk5qmA ⢠Peter DeSantis talking about HPC on AWS (itâs l-o-n-g & also has the Rob Smedley bit in it) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPUWATKe15E ⢠New ARM instances coming to AWS with (apparently) around 40% price-performance advantage over their other instances (faster AND cheaper) - https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/coming-soon-graviton2-powered-general-purpose-compute-optimized-memory-optimized-ec2-instances/ As always, connect with us both on LinkedIn & mention the podcast đ
Simon on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-hubbard-48b96310/ Robin on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinknowles/
In todayâs episode we welcome back previous guest, friend of the show and all-round CFD expert, Patrick Hanley.
The last time Patrick was on the show we spoke about his experience as an independent CFD software vendor. This time weâre hearing about his adventures designing âflying carsâ as part of the mobility startup Terrafugia.
We cover a lot of ground, including, but not limited to:
⢠How speed of execution is critical in the sprint to market & how different CFD tools can play into that (including a huge shout-out to Pointwise) ⢠The value of understanding whatâs gone before, not only in terms of aircraft development, but also code development & being able to mine those archives to give you an unfair advantage today ⢠The importance of being able to select the right simulation tool for the job, being able to get multiple approaches to agree & the alarm bells that should go off when they donât
Shownotes ⢠Connect with Patrick on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hanleyinnovations/ * Check out Patrickâs CFD codes at http://hanleyinnovations.com/ ⢠Check out the Terrafugia website for more details of their vehicle concepts - https://terrafugia.com/
Today Iâm chatting with Jens Cornelis, one of the founders of FIFTY2 Technology â CFD software developers based in Freiburg, Germany & home to the particle-based CFD code PreonLab.
Jens shares some of the story of FIFTY2 Technology & the development of what became PreonLab, including:
⢠why PreonLab is about more than just pretty pictures (but boy, do they make some pretty pictures) & whether using a CFD package can actually be âfunâ ⢠how it was a little âtoo physicalâ for Pixar ⢠how they âcrossed the chasmâ & their journey from academia (University of Freiburg) into business ⢠the benefits of partnering with a distributor & having an industry focus
A couple of âmust watchâ videos to get a better handle on what weâre talking about:
⢠The âwipers & rainâ video I mentioned - https://youtu.be/J-tvjQVQ3hQ ⢠The water wading simulation Jens mentioned - https://youtu.be/zku5AJ-_NNI ⢠Another video featuring windscreen wipers, this time dealing with snow - https://youtu.be/YrWQsrBNDBg
Shownotes ⢠Fifty2 Techology - https://www.fifty2.eu/ ⢠PreonLab - https://www.fifty2.eu/preonlab/ ⢠Fifty2 YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnYu7qq_21i9C3BPB8KNMkw ⢠Connect with Jens on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jens-cornelis-3828a28b/ ⢠Crossing The Chasm Book - https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062292986/
Simon & I celebrate 50 episodes of this podcast, share our thoughts on the last 2 shows & disappear down a few tangential rabbit holes. Itâs just your typical social episode really, including:
⢠getting it done - having ideas & then executing on them (even without a coffee boost) ⢠different ways to make CFD more accessible (AirShaper & Discovery Live) - a.k.a. âgetting your 80%â ⢠how âdemocratisationâ might have got lost in a cupboard with âdigital twinsâ & âthe internet of thingsâ ⢠SPH (whatever that is) đ
Links to things we mentioned
⢠15th OpenFOAM Workshop in June 2020 in Virginia đşđ¸ - http://openfoamworkshop.org/
⢠OpenCFDtrailing mesh deformation as part of the upcoming OpenFOAM1912 release in December - https://twitter.com/openfoam/status/1194181775234420736
⢠DualSPHysics - https://dual.sphysics.org/ - is the latest addition to Simonâs box of shiny things & a companion for his new hardware
⢠Geometry/mesh morphing in Python - http://mathlab.github.io/PyGeM/ - thereâs a Python module for everything these days & theyâre mostly found in Simonâs box of shiny things
As always, connect with us both on LinkedIn & mention the podcast đ
Simon on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-hubbard-48b96310/ Robin on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinknowles/
In our third insight episode, Kurt Smithgall, formally of S20 Design, takes us into the fast-flowing world of whitewater-park design or, to borrow a phrase from Kurt - ârecreational hydraulics.â
Kurt gives us an insight into how CFD is helping in the design of whitewater parks & some of the challenges therein - including:
⢠mitigating the risk of building a water park that doesnât work ⢠dealing with uncertainty in geometry & flow conditions ⢠scale - both in terms of the mesh/physics, but also the length of the transient simulations ⢠the importance of domain expertise & whether you need to be a paddler to do this job ⢠the future - mixing CFD post-pro & virtual reality to âpaddleâ features before theyâve even been built
Shownotes ⢠Connect with Kurt on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kurt-smithgall-a4802b66/ ⢠Find out more about S20 Design - https://s2odesign.com/ Check out these two video to get a better idea of what we discuss: ⢠Boise River Park - https://bit.ly/boise-whitewater ⢠Overview of S20 Design - https://youtu.be/p6kzWenthMw
You may have noticed that Iâm a big fan of doing CFD in the cloud & a big fan of interesting CFD companies, so todayâs interview is a particular favourite. Iâm talking with Wouter Remmerie, founder of AirShaper a cloud CFD platform aiming to make aerodynamic analysis more accessible & affordable.
Wouter shares his experiences, thoughts & stories on:
⢠his sports car ambitions & death-defying aerodynamic testing ⢠âblack boxâ CFD for aerodynamics ⢠AirShaperâs unique selling point in a growing cloud CFD market ⢠their LinkedIn videos and digital marketing for CFD
Shownotes
⢠Check out the AirShaper website for more information, including: - videos - https://airshaper.com/videos - a sample project - https://app.airshaper.com/projects/sample/fixed-wing-drone - try with your own geometry - https://app.airshaper.com/projects/new
⢠Connect with Wouter on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/wouter-remmerie/
In this weekâs round of CFD pub chat Simon & I share our takeaways from the recent episodes, plus what weâve been up to since last time, including (but not limited to):
⢠fancy optimisation stuff ⢠going (or not going) to conferences ⢠sharing your work & secret customers 𤍠⢠plus, we solve the cloud vs. in-house debate âď¸
Links to things we mentioned ⢠NAFEMS conference on simulation-based optimisation - https://www.nafems.org/events/nafems/2019/simulation-based-optimisation/
⢠Darrin Stephenâs total cost of ownership analysis for public cloud vs. in-house - https://www.appliedccm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/TCO-Cloud-2019-DWS-1.pdf
- Effective Quadratures the âmagicâ dimension reduction toolkit Simon mentioned
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https://www.effective-quadratures.org/
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ParaView 5.7.0 Release Notes
- https://blog.kitware.com/paraview-5-7-0-release-notes/
As always, connect with us both on LinkedIn & mention the podcast đ
Simon on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-hubbard-48b96310/ Robin on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinknowles/
In the second of our "insights" series Brian Willis, of specialist engineering consultancy Astrimar, is taking us deep into the world of CFD for oil & gas. Not deep into the technicals, but deep under the ocean & into the mud. Hold onto to your headphones, weâre going downhole for a spot of plugging & abandonment.
Brian gives us a flavour of what CFD looks like in this particular niche - whatâs tricky & whatâs commonplace, including:
⢠the extreme scales that dominate their models ⢠how the levels of uncertainty in the geometry, environment & the flow conditions, impact the kind of simulations & techniques employed ⢠how this sector might be a great fit for the lesser-spotter digital twin ⢠how, despite the technical challenges, CFD is proving a feasible & economical alternative to experimental testing. Particularly when it comes to developing & proving new technologies
Shownotes ⢠Connect with Brian on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-willis-20847343/ or send him an email, but youâll have to listen to the show to get his email address đ ⢠Find out more about Astrimar @ https://www.astrimar.com/
You wait around for a CFD consultant interview & then two come along at once. This is the second âfounderâ interview of the season & the second CFD consultant - duff scheduling, my bad.
Today Iâm chatting with James Linfield, one half of the dynamic duo behind Navier Flow Consultants â a (relatively) new CFD consultancy based in Nottingham, UK.
James gives us the benefit of his recent experience & shares his take on:
⢠the transition from employee to âbossâ ⢠choosing a niche to focus on ⢠advice for those looking to start a CFD consultancy in todayâs market ⢠their approach to the cloud & why they have a stack of machines keeping the office warm ⢠the importance of networking, for everyone, but particularly for those looking to start a new businesses
Shownotes Check out Navier Flow Consultants @ https://navier-flow-consultants.com/ Connect with James on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-linfield-51a37175/
đ Weâre Back đ
It's time for another a round of "social" episodes. In this season, Simon & I will be discussing our takeaways from the latest interviews, sharing cool CFD-things weâve seen on the internets & generally shooting the CFD-breeze. It's the kind of conversation you might have in the pub with your fellow CFD-nerds - if you're not too busy meshing, that is.
This week we touch on:
⢠what weâve been up to (itâs been a while) ⢠dealing with âshiny objectâ syndrome ⢠whether AI + Adjoint = Unemployment? ⢠CFD vs Wind Tunnel tension from our previous F1 lives
Here are the links to the things we mentioned
⢠Upstream Applied Science (Simonâs new consultancy) - https://www.upstream-applied-science.com/
⢠1ST Automotive CFD prediction workshop - https://autocfd.eng.ox.ac.uk/
⢠Monolith AI - the artificially intelligent engineering data platform -https://www.monolithai.com/
Finally, connect with us on LinkedIn & mention the podcast đ
⢠Simon on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-hubbard-48b96310/ ⢠Robin on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinknowles/
This is the first of our new style of shows where I talk to CFD practitioners / experts / âthose that doâ to find out what CFD looks like in their world.
We typically start these episodes with an overview of how CFD gets used in their industry, then zero in on some of the uniquely challenging aspects and dig a little deeper.
In this show Iâm talking to Stefano Capra of engineering consulting giants Ramboll, about some of the ways CFD is used in the design of the built environment & the challenges faced in that sector.
Stefano gives us his insight into whatâs challenging, whatâs ânormalâ and whatâs on his CFD wish list, including:
⢠why CFD in the built environment is about more than just pedestrian comfort studies ⢠how CFD is becoming increasingly accepted as an aid to the established experimental methods, as opposed to a replacement ⢠how CFD routinely helps save millions of dollars in construction costs (and thousands of tons of CO2 ) by accurately predicting the wind loading on new designs
Links
⢠Connect with Stefano on LinkedIn (mention the podcast đ) - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefano-capra-97350035/ ⢠See the Ramboll homepage for more info on the kind of projects they help engineer - https://www.ramboll.com/
Itâs the first episode of Season 04 & weâre back with the usual problem - how to condense 25+ years experience running a simulation business into a single episode. We fail (as usual) but it still makes for an interesting show.
In this episode Iâm talking with Eric Miller, one of founding team of PADT â an expert simulation consultancy which first opened its doors 25 years ago this year.
Eric shares his thoughts on:
- migrating from an internal research group at a large company to an autonomous small business
- the evolution of their computing from SGI Octane through the Pentium revolution and on into the cloud
- whether the current crop of open-source tools make commercial software a harder sell?
- where the simulation âlow-hanging fruitâ has gone & how consultants need to be extracting higher value from their simulation tools
- building the kind of business where itâs a pleasure to come to work in the morning
Links
⢠PADT â https://www.padtinc.com/ ⢠Connect with Eric on LinkedIn â https://www.linkedin.com/in/emillerphx ⢠All Things ANSYS podcast â http://www.padtinc.com/blog/podcast/ ⢠The book Eric mentioned â https://www.amazon.com/dp/111943470X
A quick heads-up that Season 04 of Talking CFD is inbound, with new episodes starting 24th September 2019.
Please make sure you're subscribed in your favourite podcast app & following us on the socials to make sure you don't miss a thing.
www.talkingcfd.com
Someone once described these episodes as Simon and I "noodling it out" - you get to listen to us working through our thoughts and (hopefully) coming to some conclusions or at least giving you something to think about. And that description probably best fits this episode.
We started out with a provocative-ish question, left over from the NAFEMS episode & expanded from there. We didn't put this one to bed, but instead we opened up the question of what "doing CFD" really means.
Question of the day (not the one in the show title) but "Do you DO CFD or is it just a tool in your toolbox?"
We don't get out much. So when one of us does manage to break away from our workstation and get to a conference, it's worth talking about. Simon gives us the lowdown from the NAFEMS UK conference including his key takeaways, what themes stood out & what was missing.
Question of the day "which conferences are worth getting out of the office for and why?"
Conference Link â https://www.nafems.org/2018/uk/
In this episode we break down some of the NASA CFD Vision 2030 document, to see if our vision of CFD in 2030 looks anything like NASA's (spoiler alert - not so much ;-).
We pick out some of what we feel are the most important topics & put them in context of where we (Simon & I - not the industry as a whole) are now & where we think they're going.
Plus I expand on why I think this document is actually just a shopping list for a cash-strapped NASA.
NASA CFD Vision 2030 Study: A Path to Revolutionary Computational Aerosciences
Read the study - https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20140003093.pdf
We've still got our head in the the clouds this week, covering some of the topics we didn't touch in the last episode. Including âbut not limited toâ addressing your cloud security concerns by having a cloud-in-a-box delivered to your front door (not exactly elastic computing). The data transfer conundrum & why I think that you need to think a little differently when it comes to putting a cloud CFD workflow together.
We also go on to talk about the new crop of cloud-only/cloud-first CFD providers. Is it a problem if you don't control the version of the code you're running? How might you deal with vendor lock-in when you never get a copy of the code?
This week's question is - "What's stopping you from cloudifying your CFD?"
Checkout The Beginner's Guide To OpenFOAM on AWS @ http://learn.cfdengine.com for a cloud-first CFD workflow on Amazon Web Services
We could talk about cloud CFD until the cows come home (& we did) so we've split this topic in two. In this first part, we start by trying to answer the question - what do we even mean by "cloud?" - before going on to elaborate on some of the differences between doing CFD in the cloud and in-house.
Simon picks me up on why I think "bursting into the cloud" is nonsense. And we discuss whether larger companies are really ready to go all in on cloud CFD?
This week's question is - "if people understand the benefits of using the cloud for CFD, then why aren't more people actually doing it?"
Checkout....
⢠The Beginner's Guide To OpenFOAM on AWS @ http://learn.cfdengine.com
⢠AWS Snowmobile - https://youtu.be/8vQmTZTq7nw?t=45s
This second instalment of the Social can only be described as a fanboy-episode. Simon & I coo over ParaView whilst discussing post-processing in general. We touch on what we need from a post-pro package, how we do our post-pro & why we're so fond of ParaView.
I guess the question of the episode is - "when an open-source package is this good, why ever would you use anything else?"
Find us on the socials or in the Facebook Group (www.talkingcfd.com/fb) and let us know your take.
Check out â https://www.paraview.org/
Not your usual Talking CFD episodes & definitely not an interview. Rather it's a series of conversations between two friends whoâve both been CFD-ing for a while & take an interest in whatâs been, whatâs what & whatâs to come in CFD.
Topics vary from show to show, but over the course of a few episodes weâre likely to give our take on (amongst other things):
⢠The current state of CFD in the cloud ⢠Whether our vision of CFD in 2030 is anything like NASAâs ⢠Just how much we really like ParaView
Hopefully youâll dig it - let us know on the socials
Shownotes
⢠Connect with Simon on Twitter and/or LinkedIn - https://twitter.com/SiHubbard - https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-hubbard-48b96310/
⢠Connect with Robin on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinknowles/
⢠Join the Talking CFD family on Facebook â www.talkingcfd.com/fb
Itâs always a pleasure to talk to a guest that has been at the top of our industry long enough to help shape how it looks today. Professor Charles Hirsch founded NUMECA 25 years ago, and has grown it into one of the pillars of commercial CFD, particularly in the maritime sector.
Itâs difficult to distil 25 years into a 30-minute interview, so we donât even try. Instead, Professor Hirsch gives us the benefit of his experience on:
⢠how theyâve been âappifyingâ CFD since before it was trendy ⢠working hand-in-hand with academia for R&D ⢠how they tackle the eternal CFD balancing act â accuracy vs. reliability vs. robustness ⢠why Lattice Boltzmann is so hot right now
Shownotes
https://www.numeca.com/ â All about NUMECA
https://youtu.be/7hVlwSpYe-E â NUMECA and the Americaâs Cup
In this episode Iâm joined by Sebastian Desand & Johan Hoffman, two of the founding team behind Ingrid Cloud. If you havenât yet crossed paths with Ingrid Cloud, itâs an innovative new cloud CFD platform thatâs driving towards CFD without manual intervention.
We talk briefly about the technology & the platform (it was very new when we recorded this), and also discuss:
⢠how Ingrid Cloud fits within the wider landscape of Industry 4.0 ⢠what CFD with no manual input might look like ⢠whether our ideas of start-of-the-art CFD are stuck in a cul-de-sac & what the new state-of-the-art might be
Sometimes things move quickly in our industry. As such, Iâd recommend the interested listener to check out Ingrid Cloud as itâs undoubtedly changed a lot since this interview.
Shownotes
https://www.ingridcloud.com/ - for the latest on the offering & to try out the demo
Connect with the guys on LinkedIn: ⢠Sebastian Desand - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastiandesand/ ⢠Johan Hoffman - https://www.linkedin.com/in/johan-hoffman-4219041/
It's always good for me to speak to other CFD consultants. It's an opportunity to compare notes & to make sure that I'm not missing out on a "magic bullet" that no one told me about.
Today I'm talking to Stewart Bible of Resolved Analytics about how he built a CFD consultancy, sold it & then built another one. We chat about:
⢠the acquisition process ⢠bridging the credibility gap ⢠the importance of investing in your own IP ⢠an interesting take on the relative merits of commercial vs. open-source for CFD consultants
As always, you can't help but learn when people have been there and done it - take a listen.
Shownotes
⢠Find out more about Resolved Analytics â https://www.resolvedanalytics.com/cfd-consulting/ ⢠David Fields' Consulting book â http://amzn.eu/hmCZrW1 * Connect with Stewart on LinkedIn â https://www.linkedin.com/in/stewartbible/ & mention the podcast
I enjoy all the interviews, but I particularly enjoyed this one â part-business, part-history lesson, in a good way. Iâm joined by Eugene de Villiers to talk about the company he co-founded â Engys.
Alongside discussing Engys, itâs products and services, we also dig into the wider world of OpenFOAM, including:
⢠Some of the early history, before FOAM was Open ⢠Whether the current âspliteredâ OpenFOAM ecosystem could actually be a good thing? ⢠Whether another open-source CFD code could hope to displace OpenFOAM?
I naturally gravitate towards OpenFOAM-related companies, itâs a self-acknowledged bias on my part. But I think youâll get something out of this interview whether you have an interest in OpenFOAM or not - enjoy.
Shownotes
- https://engys.com/ - open-source CFD for enterprise
- https://engys.com/products/helyx - their flagship product
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/eugene-de-villiers-81833722/ - Eugene on LinkedIn
This episode is both, the second GPU-related show of the season, and also a cloud simulation episode. The company on todayâs show is innovating on both those fronts with their GPU CFD code and their cloud simulation platform.
Today Iâm talking with three of the key people behind the Bristol-based, CFD innovators âZenotechâ Jamil Appa (co-founder), David Standingford (co-founder) & Mike Turner (product lead). They take it in turns to fill us in on:
⢠The scale of the massively parallel architectures at play in HPC today; ⢠Whether the previous generation of CFD codes keep up or if we need to rearchitect our codes as well as our hardware? ⢠Do we still need CPUs or can we move over to GPUs entirely? ⢠How they help users navigate the ever-growing number of cloud computing providers ⢠And how they can even make suggestions as to when & where you might like to run your CFD jobs
As previously, please forgive any GPU 101 questions â weâre still learning here.
Shownotes
https://zenotech.com/ â Simulation Unlimited https://zenotech.com/zcfd-zenotech-computational-fluid-dynamics/ â GPU CFD https://zenotech.com/epic-elastic-private-interactive-cloud/ â Cloud CFD
No season of this podcast would be complete without one or two OpenFOAM-related episodes, so here we are. Iâm talking with LuboĹĄ Pirkl, one of the co-founders of CFD Support, a multi-faceted CFD company based in Prague, Czech Republic.
We dive into some of the usual stuff that comes up when we talk OpenFOAM, but LuboĹĄ also gives us some extra insight into:
⢠the difficult early days & how close they came to giving up ⢠how the CFD marketplace has moved away from dedicated CFD engineers & that OpenFOAM isnât a great fit for these new users ⢠the decisions behind creating a vertical CFD application and why they chose the turbomachinery market ⢠why communicating the value of your product or service is often more difficult than any of the technical aspects
Shownotes ⢠https://www.cfdsupport.com/ ⢠https://www.cfdsupport.com/turbomachinery-cfd.html
New Episode â New Tech. In this one we're looking at the move towards GPUs for compute & talking with Envenio - one of the companies looking to take maximum advantage of this emerging hardware trend for better CFD.
Iâm not super-familiar with what you can (and canât) do with a GPU in a CFD context - so forgive me if I ask some 101-level questions. Ian McLeod (CEO) & Scott Walton (VP Business Development) kindly fill me in on:
⢠where the trend towards GPU compute is comping from and where it might be going ⢠does new architecture need new âclean-sheetâ software? ⢠what sort of speedup can we expect from this new hardware-software combination? ⢠some of the marketing lessons they learned trying to build up a new brand & reach CFD users
Shownotes
www.envenio.com for more about what they do & to book a free demo blog.envenio.com/surveyresults2 to find out more about the CFD Users Survey that Scott mentions in the episode
In this episode I'm joined by Bartosz GĂłrecki and Wojciech Regulski, two of the founders of QuickerSim, a Warsaw-based company behind the MATLAB CFD toolbox of the same name.
We talk about their experiences as part of a startup accelerator â including a few tips for getting those all-important early sales.
The "plate-juggling act" that is, starting a company whilst still finishing up your PhD.
And perhaps most importantly of all in a CFD context â "why MATLAB?"
Shownotes
⢠QuickerSim â CFD Toolbox for MATLAB â https://quickersim.com/ ⢠QuickerSim Free Trial/Lite Version â https://quickersim.com/cfdtoolbox/download/
This episode is another departure from our regular interview shows. Today I'm joined by a panel of 5 guests who kindly shed some light on a few of the issues facing women in CFD.
Our expert panel includes Chris Wolfe, Althea de Souza, Aniko Rakai, Irena JuretiÄ and Elisabeth McLean. Between them they cover a breadth and depth of experiences in CFD, whilst sharing an infectious desire to promote our industry as a great career choice for the next generation of female engineers.
We cover some ground, including:
- the scourge that is "mansplaining"
- the importance of women-in-tech groups/meetups/initiatives as a safe place to discuss issues & develop ideas
- whether women need to work harder & do a better job to get to the same place as a man?
- the role of imposter syndrome & self-esteem when it comes to a woman's career progression
- how will we know when we've "made it" in women in tech?
We barely scratched the surface here, but if you'd like to continue the conversation then hop over to our Facebook Group - talkingcfd.com/fb
Apologies that the audio isn't up to the usual standards, but recording 6 people live is still a tricky prospect. I'll try & do better next time out.
This is a talk I gave at last year's ESI OpenFOAM conference which focussed on the OpenFOAM-related guests that have been on the show & my key takeaways from talking to them. It also gives a bit of background to why & how the podcast came about in the first place.
The interviewees in question include Franjo JuretiÄ (Creative Fields), Karim Fahssis (ZephyCloud), David Heiny (SimScale), Darrin Stephens & Chris Sideroff (Applied CCM) and Fred Mendonça (ESI OpenCFD).
If you're new here then it should be a nice overview of past interviews & a bit of a rewind for those of you who've been in the podcast family for a while
For the really committed, you can watch it with slides, over on YouTube â https://youtu.be/-UeABCmUBo0
Enjoy
Season 03 is go - back with 9 new interviews, at least one roundtable, a couple of bonus episodes & our newly-rebooted informal show, Talking CFD Social.
Loads of stuff to perk up your commute, yard work or anywhere else you might want some CFD in your earbuds.
Don't forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts & join the conversation happening in our Facebook Group at www.talkingcfd.com/fb
Itâs the last episode of this season & weâve covered some ground in those 10 episodes. Both in terms of the types of CFD weâve featured & the countries weâve touched. So Iâm pleased to round out the season with a combination of the two.
Iâm joined by Joana Bretz, founder of CINAR Brazil, a consultancy that uses specialist CFD to solve some pretty complex problems in the cement industry. Joana shares her insight into that world, including:
⢠why CINAR created a niche-specific software that they donât really sell & how they use it to give themselves a huge advantage those competitors using generic CFD software; ⢠why itâs so important, as a consultant, to be solving expensive problems & how having domain expertise (& a clear niche) letâs you identify those problems; ⢠how she became a go-to expert in her field & the benefits that brings when it comes to attracting (& keeping) clients; ⢠the role of CFD expert user & why we donât all need to be developers.
Shownotes
CINAR Brazil - http://www.cinarbrasil.com/ CINAR - http://cinar.co.uk/
Today weâre talking about an integral part of most CFD processes that often getâs ignored. It comes before we start our CFD process, yet often has a huge impact on that process â CAD.
Iâm chatting with Mark Gammon, Technical Director of the Cambridge office of ITI & one of the team behind their software package CADfix (the clue is in the name). Mark has an in-depth knowledge of CAD that many of us CFD people donât & he fills me in on:
⢠what makes CAD so tricky to work with in the first place & why solid modelling isnât really; ⢠what on earth a medial object is & why it could be hugely important for CFD meshing; ⢠what sort of pre-meshing / CAD-cleanup jobs weâll soon be able to automate & whether weâre about to lose the human from the CFD meshing loop; ⢠why going back-to-CAD is still such a tricky problem.
Shownotes CADfix â http://www.iti-global.com/cadfix & https://twitter.com/CADfix
This is one of those end-of-season "different" episodes where we arenât talking about the CFD business. Weâre discussing NAFEMS, a not-for-profit organisation working to benefit simulation professionals worldwide.
I chat with Althea de Souza, long-time NAFEMS member, chair of the CFD working group & commissioning editor for their quarterly magazine, about:
⢠what NAFEMS do, who they do it for and most importantly - why we should care; ⢠NAFEMS' role in advocating for CFD & trying to ensure standards as CFD becomes more mainstream; ⢠their efforts at getting good simulation engineers acknowledged with their certification and competency tracking schemes.
If, like me, you donât know much about NAFEMS - then itâs definitely worth a listen.
Shownotes - NAFEMS - https://www.nafems.org/ - Benchmark Magazine - https://www.nafems.org/publications/benchmark/
In this episode, Iâm talking with Sandip Jadhav, one of the founders CCTech - the team behind a host of CFD-related projects. We couldnât do them all justice, so we focused on two of their more well-known projects, Simulation Hub (a cloud CFD platform with a difference) & LearnCAx (a free, online learning resource for CFD). We chat about:
⢠why theyâre specifically targeting designers with Simulation Hub & why they chose to build âweb servicesâ, rather than a general purpose CFD platform; ⢠how they developed a âsecret sauceâ & how itâs become the foundation of many of their products; ⢠the role of artificial intelligence in helping to democratise CFD; ⢠the startup ecosystem in India & the increasing competition for CAE development talent.
Shownotes http://www.cctech.co.in/ â the parent company behind all of these projects https://www.learncax.com/ â Free online CFD training courses https://www.simulationhub.com/ â Cloud CFD platform for designers
I managed to find another Robin to talk CFD with today. Robin Bornoff has been with Mentor Graphics (& Flomerics before that) for 20+ years, focussed on delivering âgood science to engineers. We're talking all about democratisation & appification in CFD. We cover:
⢠why calling niche CFD tools âappsâ might be doing them a disservice & whether CFD tools will become commodified; ⢠what the CFD industry has in common with the automotive industry, both in terms of itâs past & future; ⢠how embedding CFD in an MCAD environment helped drive democratisation & why embedded CAD is more than just a user interface problem;
Note, this episode was recorded before the announcement of Mentor Graphicsâ acquisition by Siemens - we werenât just ignoring it.
LINKS
Mentor Graphics (Mechanical Analysis Division) âhttps://www.mentor.com/products/mechanical/ Robin Bornoff's Blog â https://blogs.mentor.com/robinbornoff/ Social Profiles â https://twitter.com/FloRobin4CFD & https://www.linkedin.com/in/robin-bornoff-5639b014
I'm joined in this episode by Mark Seymour, one of the founding team behind Future Facilities, a CFD company focused on the data centre & electronics cooling sectors. In addition to the origins, focus and growth of the company, we get to talk about Mark's role as the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) & what that entails in a modern CFD company.
We discuss: ⢠how to position your CFD product or service based on the business benefits it delivers to a customer â as opposed to just another feature-rich R&D tool; ⢠why a CTO is more than just a senior engineer/developer & how the role changes as a company grows; ⢠how Future Facilitiesâ offering has evolved to deliver value to non-engineering groups (for example, facilities management & operational teams) & how that impacts the way they talk about their products; ⢠why he spends a large portion of his time working with sector-specific bodies/societies & what kinds of benefits they derive from that effort;
Links Main Site â http://www.futurefacilities.com/ 6SigmaDCX CFD Package â http://www.6sigmadcx.com/
Today is the first episode with 2 guests â Darrin Stephens & Chris Sideroff â business partners in Applied CCM, based in Australia & Canada respectively.
Whilst Applied CCM have several CFD-related activities, this interview is essentially all about Caelus, their CFD software derived from OpenFOAMÂŽ. I really wanted to take this opportunity to dig into the whys & wherefores of Caelus, including:
⢠what makes Caelus different to OpenFOAM, both in terms of features & philosophy; ⢠why forks/derivatives detract from their parent open-source project & what they signify; ⢠what âindustrially-hardenedâ means in a CFD context & why Red Hat Linux was a source of inspiration; ⢠why they have "a thing" about validation;
Shownotes Applied CCM â http://www.appliedccm.com/ Caelus â https://www.caelus-cml.com/
In this episode Iâm joined by Franjo JuretiÄ, one of the founders of Creative Fields & the primary developer behind their CFD meshing toolkit - cfMesh.
Franjo & I discuss how a part-time project, that would only take a couple months to finish, turned into a 13+ year journey. Along the way we cover:
- how they use a freely-available, open-source product â cfMesh â to increase brand awareness & feed into their commercial offerings;
- how cfMesh fits into the OpenFOAM landscape & why itâs more than just an OpenFOAM mesher;
- why the problem of creating meshes for CFD will probably never be completely solved (& thatâs why he enjoys it so much);
- the benefits of being a small company & building direct relationships with your customers;
Links
http://cfmesh.com/ â For more information on cfMesh, cfMesh Pro & cfFlow https://sourceforge.net/projects/cfmesh/ â the cfMesh code repository on sourceforge https://twitter.com/CFieldsHR â Follow Creative Fields on Twitter
In this episode Iâm talking with Nicolas Tonello of Renuda about running a successful CFD consultancy / development / training business. We also open the box on Code_Saturne - an open-source CFD software that you may not know too much about. Nicolas & I chat about:
⢠why being independent is so important to them & how it benefits their clients; ⢠how they balance their consulting, development & training activities; ⢠how CFD can be much more than just an R&D tool; ⢠what is Code_Saturne & why arenât more people using it? ⢠whether an OpenFOAM user would feel at home in Code_Saturne & some of the compelling reasons to switch; ⢠a nugget of advice for anyone thinking of starting their own CFD consultancy;
Links
⢠http://www.renuda.com/ â Renuda Website ⢠http://code-saturne.org/ â Code_Saturne
Today Iâm talking with Kelly Senecal, one of the founding team behind Convergent Science. He tells me about how the days spent hand-crafting meshes led to them to develop CONVERGE CFD - a CFD package which automagically handles meshing for you.
Kelly & I discuss:â
⢠how they get along fine without a company president; ⢠how CONVERGE was almost open-source & how they're pioneering a hybrid (open & closed source) model with their take on user-defined functions; ⢠why there's more to CONVERGE than just automated meshing; ⢠how they compete in the marketplace especially when the sales process involves displacing a-n-other code; ⢠a nugget of advice for those just starting out & worried about competing with the bigger players in their market;
LINKS
⢠CONVERGE CFD â https://convergecfd.com/ ⢠CONVERGE CFD on YouTube â https://www.youtube.com/user/convergecfd
Talking CFD Season 02 is almost here - 10 more interviews with the people behind some of today's most interesting CFD businesses & a couple of new things to watch out for:
Check out:
⢠http://www.talkingcfd.com/social â for the new live video CFD social
⢠http://www.talkingcfd.com/fb â for the new listener Facebook group
Itâs the final episode of the season & I'm joined by almost the full cast of interviewees for an hour long Q&A session, originally broadcast live on YouTube.
Our expert panel comprised Wolfgang Gentzsch (UberCloud), Patrick Hanley (Hanley Innovations), John Chawner (Pointwise), Haysam Telib (Optimad), Fred Mendonça (OpenCFD), Karim Fahssis (MeteoPole) & our sales coach Jeff Waters.
The sound quality isnât up to standard, but hopefully the content makes up for it somewhat. We touched on:
⢠emerging technologies that could benefit CFD in the near future; ⢠the âdemocratisation of CAEâ; ⢠the trends in outsourcing CFD groups in industry; ⢠whether a CFD developer needs a computer science/engineering degree; ⢠whether CFD will play a big role in healthcare & what other sectors could CFD benefit right now; ⢠whether recent Artificial Intelligence/Deep Learning developments (AlphaGo) have any application in CFD; â˘what CFD businesses the panelists might start, if they had to start again right now;
Links
Replay via YouTube - https://youtu.be/lzI-BpIlEZA
As this is the last 1-to-1 interview episode of the season, I thought I'd try something a little different. This time Iâm not speaking to a company founder, Iâm speaking to a domain expert about a business essential that we could all do with being a bit better at - sales.
I take 30mins and get tactical with CAE sales expert (& podcast host) Jeff Waters about why engineers might not be that great at sales & what we can do about it, including:
⢠how introverts can learn to become great salespeople; ⢠why you shouldnât just âshow up & throw upâ when you meet a lead; ⢠why itâs important to listen for (& then use) prospects internal language & code-names; ⢠why you always need a next step; ⢠and why LinkedIn is your friend.
Links
Life Upfront - http://lifeupfront.com - Jeff's CAE blog & podcast
In this episode I'm joined by Stefan Harries, one of the co-founders of Friendship Systems, the team behind CAESES, a multi-faceted software package enabling parametric shape optimisation for CFD. Stefan & I discuss:
⢠whether parametric shape optimisation will ever become mainstream in CFD; ⢠why a free version is just one part of a multi-pronged customer acquisition strategy; ⢠how paying attention to your customers can lead to entirely new use cases for your product; ⢠what you need to do to get a Mac version of CAESES;
Links
CAESES â https://www.caeses.com/
In today's episode I had the opportunity to talk to Karim Fahssis - an MIT awarded innovator, a bicycle adventurer and the co-founder of multiple businesses in the CFD space. We cover some ground, mainly around CFD in the wind power industry, but also around doing business in Asia:
⢠how maintaining a consultancy practice can give you great insight into how to improve your product offerings; ⢠why taking CFD outside the normal design/development cycle & getting closer to the money can produce great results; ⢠why having a laser focus is essential to making your offerings work; ⢠why, if you want to do business in China, you shouldn't expect to be able to do it all remotely;
Links
MeteoPole - http://www.meteopole.com/ Zephy-Science - http://www.zephy-science.com/ Zephy Cloud - http://www.zephycloud.com/
Today Iâm joined by Fred Mendonça of OpenCFD to chat about to chat about the challenges of running a business where the primary offering (OpenFOAMÂŽ) is open-source & freely-available. We dig into:
⢠where/how/if being open-source can have an impact on a codeâs value proposition;
⢠why fostering a community â and opening up channels to allow that community to make useful contributions â are some of the largest & most important challenges Fred faces with OpenFOAMÂŽ;
⢠why the success of their Windows release of OpenFOAMŽ was both a no-brainer & a surprise;
⢠what a classical Greek story about a feather has to do with the future of OpenFOAMŽ.
Links http://www.openfoam.com/ â All about OpenCFD & OpenFOAMÂŽ
In this episode I'm talking with Haysam Telib, CEO of Optimad a Turin-based consultancy & software house working in the freeform deformation & shape optimisation space. We cover some ground, including:
⢠how consulting is a great way to get ideas for products your customers would buy but.... ⢠why transitioning from consulting to products is MUCH harder than you might imagine (& it's not just cashflow that's difficult); ⢠how open-source & open-innovation are shaping their business model;
Links
Optimad â http://www.optimad.it/
This week Iâm joined by John Chawner, President & Co-Founder of Pointwise, the company behind the CFD meshing software of the same name. John & I discuss what it takes to build a CFD business with longevity, including:
⢠why itâs more important than ever to have a laser-focused value proposition in order to communicate with the growing CFD market; ⢠why you donât need to reinvent the business âwheelâ to have a successful CFD business; ⢠why weâre not likely to see a Pointwise solver or post-processor any time soon.
Shownotes
⢠Pointwise â http://www.pointwise.com/ ⢠Pointwise blog (always-worth-a-look) â http://blog.pointwise.com/ ⢠Pointwise on Twitter â https://twitter.com/Pointwise ⢠Pointwise on YouTube â https://youtube.com/user/CFDMeshing
I'm joined in this episode by aerodynamics expert & software developer Patrick Hanley to talk about the business that he has built over the past 20+ years around his suite of aerodynamic software. We get into:
⢠how Patrick's philosophy of "putting the biggest program on the smallest machine" guides the development of his toolkit;
⢠why downloadable software is not dead or dying IF you do it right;
⢠how Patrick has taken the best bits of a SaaS/cloud business model & incorporated them into a downloadable product;
Links
Hanley Innovations - http://www.hanleyinnovations.com/
Today Iâm lucky enough to catch-up with David Heiny, one of the five co-founders of SimScale - the impressive cloud simulation platform for FEA & CFD. We touch on:
⢠how software-as-a-service might help to bring simulation into design processes that currently/traditionally donât benefit from FEA & CFD analysis; ⢠how introducing a community aspect to their platform has helped lower the barriers to entry for new users & incentivised the exchange of know-how; ⢠the importance, as they see it, of having a freemium business model with a useful free tier, rather than just a free trial; ⢠venture capital funding in the cloud simulation space;
Links SimScale - https://www.simscale.com/
In this episode I chat with Wolfgang Gentzsch of UberCloud - the company trying to enable HPC for simulation via the cloud â and we discuss:
-
the evolution of UberCloud from an idea through the experimentation phase, vendor marketplace phase to a provider of computing as a service;
-
building a community of interested parties - end-users, software providers & infrastructure providers - learning what they need & then building it;
-
how Docker has shaped the evolution of UberCloud and just how important it will be in simulation software provision;
Shownotes
UberCloud - https://www.theubercloud.com/
I give you a little intro to what Talking CFD is intended to be & who I am.
I also give you a heads-up about the upcoming, end-of-season roundtable where you can get involved & ask questions to past interviewees.
I also urge you to jump on the mailing list if you haven't already done so at http://www.talkingcfd.com
In this episode I'm joined by Paul Bemis to talk about the lessons he's learned building CoolSim - the data centre airflow modelling application - including (but not limited to ;-)
-
their client-server approach to building a software-as-a-service offering on top of Ansys Fluent;
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how that client-server setup gives them a distinct advantage when it comes to the all-important customer support;
-
the merits of focusing on a niche market and becoming a domain expert in that niche;
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plus why teaching via webinars has become one of their strongest marketing & customer acquisition channels.
Links CoolSim - http://www.coolsimsoftware.com/