Best CFD software tutorials for beginners
Learning Computational Fluid Dynamics can be a very difficult task. You can find a few resources covering some of the CFD theory basics in our Resources section, but we still think that an hands-on approach is the best way to quickly learn how to work in CFD. For this purpose we have collected below 4 best CFD software tutorials for beginners to help you in this journey. The following tutorials are based on the CFD software SimWorks, which has a free version and a commercial version.
The initial tutorials will guide the user through the basics of using a CFD software and how to setup a complete CFD simulation
4 Best CFD software tutorials for beginners using SimWorks
The SimWorks introduction tutorial is a brief overview of the CFD software SimWorks. It is important to complete this tutorial before getting started with the more advanced ones
The glider tutorial is a complete example of a CFD simulation completed using SimWorks and it is available both as a step by step guide or as a video tutorial
The wind load on buildings tutorial is showing a complete industrial application to calculate the structural load on high rise buildings due to the wind effect
The truck aerodynamics tutorial analysis is calculating the drag coefficient of a typical truck and it is a good example of using SimWorks on complex geometries
4 Best CFD software tutorials for advanced users based on SimWorks
For more advanced tutorials we are going to use features available in the commercial version of SimWorks. It is free for academic user, can be used for up to 14 days as a free trial and offers very flexible licensing options.
The best CFD software tutorials for advanced users show how to set up multiple CFD simulations to fully characterise the aerodynamic response of a particular object like the full stall sweep of a glider plane.
Also it is possible to use CFD to simulate more advanced effects, like the effect of the temperature distribution on the internal flows inside a room and the calculation of the dispersion of a pollutant indoor, with a typical example being the local virus concentration distribution inside an hospital room, or outside with an example of how pollutant fumes disperse in an urban environment.
The SimWorks advanced introduction tutorial covers the basics of the software and describes the different environments within it. It is an essential intro to get you started
The glider stall angle tutorial shows a complete example of a full set of CFD simulations to carry out a complete aerodynamic mapping of the stall attitude of a typical glider plane
The emergency room tutorial is a practical example of an internal flow simulation assessing the concentration change of a pollutant inside a room. It also shows the effect of an increase in inlet velocity
The fume extraction tutorial calculated at the dispersion of a pollutant released by an extraction tube in an urban environment. Different extraction tube geometries are assessed to check the overall sensitivity
Conclusions
The tutorials shown above are a brief introduction to the use of a Computational Fluid Dynamics software. CFD is a very powerful and flexible tool that is currently used in a variety of industries. The tutorials above are just an example what can be done, as CFD can be used in many industrial applications: transport, medical engineering or the aerospace industry.
We advice to download and try the free CFD software version of SimWorks and complete the tutorials for beginners above to get an idea of how to use a CFD software. Once completed, it is also possible to modify any of the simulation parameters like the inlet velocity or the boundary condition types to get used to the sensitivity of those parameters on the CFD simulation results. SimWorks is unrestricted in terms of cell count, meaning that is is also possible for the user to carry out a mesh sensitivity study by increasing the total number of cells to see how the individual results change.
Once the best CFD software tutorials for beginners are completed you can also replace the geometry used in the tutorial with your own to carry out a simulation which is closer to your specific applications. We would recommend to start a free 14-day trial of SimWorks to explore the capability of a commercial version, capable of carrying out multiple simulations at the same time and define new simulations in seconds.