Ed;
Speaking of solid modeling, do you know of anyone who has done any on a
Chevy small-block engine? Actually, I'd like to get some dimensional
drawings but I haven't been able to find any as yet.
What's your recommendation for an easy-to-use FEA program that's
affordable-- or is there such a thing?
Regards, Neil Tucson, AZ
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-land-speed@autox.team.net
[mailto:owner-land-speed@autox.team.net] On Behalf Of The Weldons
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 7:03 PM
To: Flowbench@aol.com
Cc: land-speed@autox.team.net; ddahlgren@snet.net; kturk@adelphia.net
Subject: CFD aka Computational Fluid Dynamics
Interesting talk about CFD. I can add a couple of bits of wisdom here.
Last
year I retired from a mechanical engineering career. Last employer, Applied
Materials, was pretty serious about CFD for modeling gas flow in
semiconductor
process chambers. They had a crew of PHD's running the problems. Wouldn't
let the regular design engineers mess with it. Too complex and specialized.
I'd say that modeling a moving vehicle would be much more complex than a
semiconductor equipment process chamber. Lots of high priced man-hours to
set
up the problem and literally hours of expensive computer time to run the
solution. Maybe GM, Daimler Benz or the people with government contracts
can
afford this. I think most of us mortals will be looking at 10 years in the
future before CFD software we can use and afford is available. I'd say CFD
is
where finite element stress analysis was 20 years ago.
Before you did anything you'd need a good solid model of the vehicle. Few,
if
any, of us are doing even that. (by the way, I need some motivation to
develop a Solidworks model for a 27T roadster body. Anyone else
interested?)
Really, the testing approach is still the most practical for us racers. We
engineers call it the "empirical" approach
Another thought--A racer I know hooked up with a professor at a West Coast
university who was a specialist in aerodynamics. Paid him some to provide
technical advise for him. But the professional help was well worth it.
Ed Weldon
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