SDP on A Practical introduction to CFD

The Department of Chemical Engineering organized a three-day SDP workshop on Computational Fluid Dynamics, from 11/10/2018 to 13/10/2018, from 8.30 am to 4.00 pm each day, at the Computer Lab of the Chemical Engineering Department. The workshop was attended by 36 students from the final year of the BE program, and was hosted by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, Professor, Chemical Engineering.

The instructor gave an introduction to the theory of CFD. He used the commercial software Converge CFD for hands-on demonstrations on how to apply CFD to practical problems, and used the free CAD program FreeCAD to create geometries that could be used in CFD and exported to Converge.

Day 1: Theory of CFD

The first day of the workshop was devoted to the theoretical concepts of CFD – the basic ideas underlying CFD techniques, and best practices.

Day 2: Introduction to Converge Studio, Converge Solver, and Post-Processing in TecPlot

On day 2, the participants were taken through the setup of a simple geometry (flow in a 2D channel), where they learned how to set up a CFD case in Converge through a hands-on session, where they followed the steps shown by the instructor on screen. All aspects of the process were carefully delineated, from geometry, boundary conditions, physics setup, solver, and post-processing using the Tecplot package (part of our Converge software suite).

Day 3: Introduction to FreeCAD and Coupling to Converge and TecPlot

On day 3, the participants were introduced to the free CAD software available for Linux, called FreeCAD. As shown by the instructor, the participants created a simple model of an industrial geometry using FreeCAD, then exported the geometry to Converge for problem setup and solution, and finally post-processed the results using Tecplot.

At the end of the session, all the students took a short quiz to test their knowledge of the subjects that had been taught in the past three days. This was followed by filling up of feedback forms about the course.

The sessions were well appreciated by the students, as was evident from the feedback forms that they submitted. The sessions were very interactive on all days, with students actively participating and clearing their doubts from time to time.

Outcome:

The students obtained a practical understanding of how to apply CFD to real-world problems. Eight of the students who attended the workshop have CFD-based final-year projects, so this was directly helpful to them, and they have immediately started using the CFD tools in the department