Great to see that you are sticking with the series. After the previous article "CFD Novice to Expert Part 3: Fluid Dynamics 201" you are now rapidly approaching halfway, with this being part 4 of this 7 part series.

CFD Cyclone Simulation: Streamlines

CFD 101

I know - you thought this was going to be a course in CFD. Now with a base of fluid dynamics knowledge, you are ready for the juicy CFD part. As a point of reference, the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) formulation of the governing flow equations is the most popular and practical approach to CFD for typical engineering flows with the current generation of computing resources - this is worth bearing in mind as you progress through the references presented in this section. First stop for a gentle definition and introduction to CFD is the Computational Fluid Dynamics article at Wikipedia. If you prefer your knowledge delivered by video, then try the free Boston University Introduction to CFD on iTunes.

Hopefully you come away from these introductions with an appreciation of key CFD concepts, such as geometry, meshing, material (physical) properties, boundary conditions, numerical schemes, turbulence modeling, accuracy, and flow visualization. If not, then try the more complicated but forthright descriptions in the CFD Online Wiki Reference section.

Stay tuned for part 5 - Hands-on CFD.