CFD science or tool?

Yes

An over-blown system for fitting curves to experimental data.

I think it's first of all a science. As much as physics or math. And a CFD user (which uses CFD as a tool) is not a CFD scientist in the same way an engineer is not a physicist or a mathematician.

If there were not CFD scientist could there be CFD users? No way.

There seem to be differing opinions about what constitutes engineering. Many important researchers in CFD, such as J Tinsley Oden, George Karniadakis, and Ivo Babuska are professors in engineering departments, have degrees in engineering, and publish papers primarily in "engineering" journals. In this sense, they are engineers, but I'm impressed with your purity if you say these people are not also mathematicians. Is this book Mathematics or Engineering?

I agree, there seems to be a misunderstanding of the terms.

As you said, they are important researchers in CFD, not just engineers; and actually Babuska has a Ph.D. in math so i think he's exactly a mathematician (or, if you want, an engineer AND a mathematician).

Anyway, i don't think they use CFD to optimize the shape of a wing or the nose of a F1 car or whatelse just because they're engineers.

I don't know if Oden or Karniadakis can also be called mathematicians but i'm sure that an engineer is not a mathematician, that is "engineer" is not synonimous of "mathematician"

As others have pointed out, developing CFD methods is mostly science, using them is mostly engineering. But what insight are you hoping to gain by asking such a fuzzy question, especially given that the terms "science" and "tool" can have a variety of meanings, and are not mutually exclusive?

*** CFD - science, or tool? ***

CFD has its roots in finding particular solutions to an equation (Navier-Stokes) derived by engineers/physicists to learn more about how fluids flow. In this sense it is a science.

The particular solutions located, for particular geometries, then provide useful insights to the investigator/engineer/physicist. In this sense, it is a tool.

So, the answer to your question could be - both !

mw... <www.adthermtech.com/wordpress3>

CFD is an art

cfd is a religion

"Tool" all the way from my standpoint.

The only real science starts with first principles (laws governing atomic scales atoms) and works up from there.