Our company is interested in purchasing CFD software for calculating the suction force produced from a ship hull scrubber vehicle currently being designed. The vehicle uses a single thruster to pull water from underneath the vehicle's 5' x 5' base which is approximately 2.5 to 3 inches from the ship's surface. The moving water produces a differential pressure across the base which provides the suction force.

Can anyone out there recommend CFD software for our application? How do I model the rotating thruster blades? Can someone without a CFD background obtain accurate answers?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Lee Powell

(1). If your company is trying to establish the cfd analysis capability, then buying the code does make some sense. (2). If your company is trying to solve a problem, then it is a good idea to let the professional do it for you. (3). Well, in either case, you need to find out whether the vendor of the code can use their code to solve your problem first. Once they have demonstrated the capability, (ask them to solve the problem for you), then you can evaluate the possibility of brining the activities in-house, assuming you have the resources to buy the computers, the codes and the engineer who is experienced enough to run the code. (4). So, ask the vendor to solve your problem first.

It sounds like you have a one-off problem to solve (or a one-off class of problems). I'd suggest getting some CFD vendors to quote on solving that problem for you using their own in-house applications businesses. That way you'll also get a feel for the true cost of using the CFD code (the vendors may charge a premium for analyst time, but they do not need to recover the cost of the software).