If you are a ketchup manufacturer then maintaining your ketchup at the right consistency is a primary concern - same goes for ketchup connoisseurs. A new procedure developed by Bandulasena, et al at the University of Sheffield combines a simple experimental observation and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to characterize the viscosity of a non-Newtonian fluid, such as ketchup, so we can be confident that our ketchup will flow.

Caedium Free Surface CFD Simulation for a Non-Newtonian Fluid

Of the 135 Symscape website visitors who voted in our latest poll, 37% cited mesh creation as the most difficult part of a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis. Configuring the geometry, deciding on physics and determining boundary conditions were clustered together as the next most difficult parts of CFD analysis. What is an engineer to do?

Poll Results: What is the most difficult part of CFD?

Can't get enough of Caedium's free surface simulations? Then this new post is for you. This animation shows a transient CFD simulation of a dam break over an obstacle. The simulation is performed in pseudo 2D, i.e., it is one cell thick.

This animation, created by Caedium Professional, shows a transient multiphase CFD simulation of water filling a tank that is initially filled with air. The free surface is shown as blue for the air-side surface and red for the water-side surface. Each frame of the animation was automatically rendered by POV-Ray (a ray-tracer) through Caedium.

The next release of the Caedium (v4) CFD software system will be fully 64-bit compatible with your Mac OS X computer. This means you will be able to run large simulations in Caedium that access all available memory under OS X v10.6 (Snow Leopard) and above.

Caedium Running as a 64-bit Application Under OS X

Exercise is a crucial ingredient for astronauts to maintain some semblance of their physiological well being and if you can combine that with exposure to artificial gravity then all the better. Enter the Human Powered Centrifuge (HPC), possibly destined for the International Space Station (ISS). It's an un-stationary bicycle that when pedaled spins around generating artificial gravity. Problem solved, right? Not so fast - nothing in space is that easy. When exercising, astronauts generate up to two times more carbon dioxide (CO2) than when relaxing and that level of CO2 could potentially cause problems for the sensitive ISS life support system. What to do? CFD to the rescue.

You will be able to simulate flow through packed beds and filters in the next release of the Caedium CFD software system. Caedium will support Porous Media using Darcy's Law for volumes and double-sided faces.

Porous Media CFD Simulation

Say you've been tasked with designing a new water pleasure craft optimized for speed called the Slickjet (fictional name). You ask the fundamental question - how do you travel fast through water? Easy, get as much of your Slickjet out of the water as you can. You know that the drag force acting on a totally submerged shape in water will be about 1000 times higher than for the same shape in air - the drag force scales according to the density of the fluid and water is 1000 times denser than air. Of course this assumes you are willing to get FAA approval for an aircraft rather than a boat. However, there is an alternative in that if you can somehow cocoon parts of your Slickjet in an air bubble as it moves through the water then you can convince the physics that those parts of your Slickjet are moving through air rather than water. This process is known as super cavitation and results in the drag forces acting on those parts of your Slickjet being more like those encountered in air rather than water.

GHOST Super Cavitation WatercraftCourtesy of Juliet Marine Systems

You will be able to perform Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations in a selection of languages, including Japanese, with the next release of the Caedium CFD software system.

Japanese Caedium Interface

You will be able to simulate rotating wind turbines and mixers with the next release of the Caedium CFD software system. Caedium will support Moving Reference Frames (MRF), which is an efficient way to simulate rotating machinery.

Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Lenz2 Caedium CFD SimulationLeft: Stationary, Right: MRF