The big news here at Symscape is that I will be presenting a paper based on the Caedium RANS Flow add-on at the Fourth OpenFOAM Workshop. Also you may have already noticed, but we've changed the name of our next add-on from Caedium Open Flow to Caedium RANS Flow to better reflect the methodology it will use.

More YF-17 and Caedium RANS Flow

Fourth OpenFOAM Workshop

I've had an abstract accepted for the Fourth OpenFOAM Workshop, June 1-4 2009, Montreal, Canada. This will be the first public presentation on Caedium concerning the integration of OpenFOAM. An added bonus is the relative close proximity to Symscape's base in New Hampshire, so I'll be around for the entire workshop with demos at the ready - hope to see you there! You can find the full abstract at "Fourth OpenFOAM Workshop 2009 Abstract."

Name Change

We've renamed Caedium Open Flow to Caedium RANS Flow, to better reflect the methodology (Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes) it will use and to reserve the Open Flow name for another use to be announced - keep tuned for details.

Horizontal-Axis Rotating Wind Turbine Blades

With all this talk about the future and the next Caedium release it's easy to forget that we still have our current release with some little explored capabilities. As an example we've produced a rotating horizontal-axis wind turbine Caedium file (.sym). It demonstrates a transient simulation using our panel method to simulate air flow as the blades rotate. Actually the blades are stationary and an angular free-stream velocity is specified - like having the air move in a wind tunnel rather than the model moving - combined with a linear free-stream velocity. We also support rigid-body rotation, so you could instead prescribe a rotation on the blades and specify only a linear free-stream air velocity.

Formula 1 Diffusers

If you are an F1 fan, and even if you aren't, then you can't have missed the latest controversy about the new rule changes for 2009 concerning diffusers. If you are wondering what a diffuser is and how it works then try my blog post from April 2007 titled "Secrets of Underbody Tunnels, Rear Diffusers and Venturis."

April Fools: Hotelicopter

I couldn't come up with an aerodynamic themed April Fools' joke this year, but even if I had, I'm certain it wouldn't have fared well against the Hotelicopter.

For the full post see my blog.