Which university has the best research facilities for CFD??

Back in 70's, the key-punch machine and IBM/360 was the machine available in campus. The program was stored on the card deck, 2000 cards a box. In 80's, the mini-computers become widely available, such as VAX , PRIME etc. In 90's, workstations and high-end PC are everywhere. Most people use workstations for CFD development and applications. The trend is such that in the next century, the high-end PC will be more cost effective for CFD. Since the CFD development has very little impact on the trend of computer development, you really don't have much choice in terms of the computer facilities used for CFD. Get a Pentium II class PC with 128 meg ram, 6 giga hard drive, a fast 3-D graphic card , then you have a pretty good machine for CFD. If you have one giga ram, you can easily run complex 3-D problem using commercial codes. (you really don't want to be locked in the super-computing environment because the outside world is currently using workstations.) If you wait long enough, you will be doing CFD on two pound lap-top PC.

I hope that you consider the people (supervisors) and co-workers as an important factor I don't think that I would call this "facilities". Real good ideas are concieved and nurtured in the mind and the minds of others not the computer, it can only add numbers. An important factor to consider is that there are a limited number of researchers who are still around who also have prior experience in experimental methods as well as CFD. It turns out that the insight from this experience is often quite different and more useful on practical problems than is an emphasis purely on mathematical methods. So get out the University calendars and look into some of the people's backgrounds.

Good luck, Duane

I agree with you that mind is more valuable than the machine. Unfortunately, industries have a strange habit of laying off experience people by thousand in order to make money. It is interesting to see that when two companies merge, they normally try to keep the machine instead of people. From this point of view, some minds are good and some minds are bad. I got the feeling that if you work like a computer, then you become more like a machine, and your job will be more secure. So, even though the mind is important, it is more important to know your machine, and work like a machine. ( this is not what I have in mind, but it is my feeling.)

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Yes, unfortunatly SOME supervisors, companies, managers do work that way....but wo cares when you can find ones that don't! The ability of the human to adapt is phenomenal but why would you deliberatly adapt yourself to work harder and longer (like a machine) when you can adapt yourself to work smarter and more effectivly?????Anthropologist have credited the success of the human race to two main factors:

1: Our thumb is offset at an angle to the fingers which enables us to grasp and articulate objects with extreme dexterity...no other animal can do this!!!

2. We have a huge brain.

I could live a fruitfull and productive life with my thumbs removed....but the lobotomy???????

Anyhow, we are way off track here.....unlike the machine people do that! I hope that none the less this discussion has prvoked some thought as to what the real purpose of a University education is and how to appropriatly select a supervisor, topic, etc.!!

Hi Elan

I cannot answer you for the best facilities. I graduated from the Cardiff University recently. As I was doing my final-year project and assisting in a research work during the summer, I was using CFD packages extensively. There are numbers of packages being used by the Uni. Furthermore, they have alot of projects using CFD analysis to solve problems. So, try to enquire from the Uni.; but I am not promising you that it is the best.

So, good luck for whichever degree you wish to get.

Lam.

Imperial College of London and UMIST have in some way linked to CFD and Turbulence modeling research for a long time, I think these two places are highly recommended for CFD study.

Thank you Mr. John C. Chien.

Thanks Mr. Lam

I study for my PhD at the University of Wales Swansea. The CFD research group that I belong to is very well equipped (Dec Alphas, PC's and Mac's) and I work on a related project (Multimedia Systems with CFD). This group is part of the Institute of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics, and everyone is a member of BSR (British Society of Rheology). The level is quite advanced, and at the moment, there are quite a few on-going industrial projects. Check it out if you are really interested!