CFD STUDIO: AN EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE FOR CFD ANALYSIS

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to demonstrate the general characteristics of the educational
user-friendly CFD Studio package for CFD teaching. The package was designed for
teaching 2D fluid mechanics and heat transfer process, including conduction, coupled
conduction/convection, natural and forced convection, external and internal flows, among
other phenomena. The finite volume methodology and its related topics can also be taught
using the software. Therefore, general aspects of the three main modules, pre-processor,
solver and post-processor are discussed aiming to show the generality of the tool. These
modules are integrated in the application by a so-called numerical problem project
which guide the student through the steps to obtain the solution. To approximate the
partial differential equations the finite volume approach is employed using a fully-implicit
formulation with the interpolation schemes CDS, UDS and WUDS. Mesh editing and nonorthogonal
boundary-fitted mesh generation, using algebraic interpolation and elliptic
equations, are important features of the package. Coupled heat transfer problems are
handled using the solid-block formulation and the pressure-velocity coupling uses the
SIMPLE and SIMPLEC methods with non-staggered grids. To demonstrate the
capabilities two fluid flow and heat transfer problem projects are presented.