I have recently completed the development of a tutorial engineering short course which is titled Computational Thermal Analysis (CTA). For additional details please visit http://www.ctacourse.homepage.com. Thank you for your interest and feedback.

best regards,

Dean S. Schrage

*****

Overview of the CTA Course: http://www.ctacourse.homepage.com/Overview/

Computational thermal analysis (CTA) is a critical discipline that drives all stages of the engineering design process. It has evolved as a sub-discipline of engineering analogous to CFD. The present course provides a singular focus on the thermal analysis process, providing a unique perspective by developing all concepts with practical examples. The course will take the student inside the basic simulation codes used today, giving them the ability to understand and appreciate all phases of the thermal modelling process.

Who Would Benefit

The CTA course is designed as a fundamentals course for the practicing thermal engineer, but is considerably detailed to engage high-level analysts more interested in the theoretical underpinnings of CTA. An introductory knowledge of heat transfer and numerical analysis is required to fully participate.

Course Content http://www.ctacourse.homepage.com/Sy...TASyllabus.pdf

The CTA course is designed around 8 lectures which descend from a structured thermal modelling paradigm. Each of the lecture topics is then broken into a series of detailed subjects.

Lecture 1 Introduction to Computational Thermal Analysis (CTA)

Lecture 2 Formulation of the Basic Equations of Heat Transfer

Lecture 3 Decoupling Systems and Deriving Boundary Conditions

Lecture 4 Discretization of the Governing Equations and Geometry

Lecture 5 Computational Solutions to the Discrete Equations

Lecture 6 Validation of Computational Models and Solutions

Lecture 7 Reconstitution and Repackaging Computational Models

Lecture 8 Special Topics in Heat Transfer

Course Media http://www.ctacourse.homepage.com/MediaSample/

The CTA course will feature a multimedia delivery by mixing overheads, video animations and InterLab sessions. Overheads will present integrated text, graphics and equations. The course emphasizes a strong pictorial representation, carefully defined nomenclature and transient animations. The entire presentation will be delivered electronically using screen projection of a laptop monitor. There are approximately 550 overheads which make up the entire lecture series.

InterLab with Q-SIM http://www.ctacourse.homepage.com/Interlab/

The CTA course provides a unique integration of a laboratory environment with the compulsory question and answer sessions during lectures. During InterLab, which stands for interactive laboratory, the Q-SIM thermal analysis code will be applied to enhance the learning process by setting up fast computational examples. The simple scratch-pad environment of Q-SIM, allows a thermal problem to literally be built and analyzed in seconds.

Course Length and Deliverables

The course length is nominally 2 to 2.5 days depending on the number of questions, but can also be tailored both in length and content for specific user needs. Each student will receive the following deliverables with their tuition:

Complete bound hard copy of lecture overheads (black and white)

CD-ROM containing each entire lecture series in complete color readable with Adobe Acrobat ® Reader TM

thermal animations (.AVI format) which are imbedded in the lecture series, keyed, played and viewed with Adobe Acrobat ® Reader TM

can I have free copy of CTA course?

Hi Mohamed,

Thank you for your inquiry. Unfortunately, the course is not free. The course content, the length of which equals a book, are available for a modest price. Please inquire by email if you are interested in obtaining the CD-ROM and bound notes. A media sample can be found at www.CTACourse.homepage.com/MediaSample

best regards,

Dean Schrage

I think we should keep this window for real technical issues.

Dr. Schrage,

This sounds interesting. My firm does a lot of structural modeling, and has in the past done a limited amount of thermal. This type of course would be great for me and my colleagues.

Please contact me.

Regards,

Joe Palko CRT

I agree with A. Hassaneen- there are other suitable places to post soft advertising of this kind on this web forum such as under Resourcs or Books. Any informed user kind find it there. This course likely has much merit, and can be a welcome addition, that is not my point.

Webmaster- what is the policy on advertising of this kind?

(1). It is a good idea to post the announcement in the resources section, because this will keep the main forum section focus on the cfd related questions. (2). The announcement of the meeting, the websites, the short courses, new books, etc... should not be posted in the main forum. (3). The announcement can be e-mailed to the members of the user's group on the individual basis. I think, this is more effective. And the general announcement in the forum section can only create negative reaction, because the person posting the message is not doing the home work. (most of the time, it will be considered as junk mail.) (4). While if the general announcement is posted in the resources section, the person doing the search will become curious about the message or the announcement, thus, make the announcement more effective.

I try to do as little censorship as ever possible and still keep the forum working well. If I start deleting some posts, while keeping other posts, that will just create further problems. This policy has worked quite well during the last two years - CFD people seem to be well behaved and aside from a couple of incidents there has been very few "flame-wars" here compared to what is common on similar forums. Most CFD companies have also avoided to use this forum for advertising. A few times I have politely asked some companies to lower their profile a bit to keep the focus of the forum on CFD and not on software marketing. This has always been respected by the companies I've been in contact with.

About advertising conferences, courses, books etc. on this forum - If the announcement is of general interest to a large, worldwide, CFD audience I think that it is okay, at least as long as the subject-line clearly shows what the message is about and the message must also clearly indicate affiliations, commercial interests etc. Also, you shouldn't post more than one announcement. If more and more announcements are posted I will open a separate announcement service. However, I don't want to do that before we see a clear need for it - having online services that aren't used is just extra work for me and irritating for the users who try to use the services. Do you think that a separate announcement service is needed now?

I'm apologize if you find the short course posting a nuisance, In defense, I searched for a guidelines sheet for CFD Online and found nothing which frowned against making an advertisement of a short course nor indicating where such a posting should better reside. I really have worked hard on this course and desire to only to bring the knowledge back to the computational community. My marketing just reflects this zeal and unfortunately is a necessary element in bringing a course of this nature to the community. If you feel it is necessary for the health of the community, please strike the threaded posting,

best regards,

Dean

P.S. I recently recall multiple postings advertising a CFD book of some sort, each tagged at the end of each persons tech posting. However, I don't recall a admonition response for any of these. Comments?

(1). It is a technical issue of how one presents the material useful to the readers. (2). So, in the forum, one could post a computational thermal-fluid problem related question first, to get the response from the readers. (3). As the conversations reach a certain stage, then you may want to bring the availability of the short course to the readers as the extra information. (4). As I have said before ( at least a year ago), the contents of the product is not important, it is the relationship between the vendor and the customers which determines the success of the product and business. (5). It is only my personal feeling that if the reader is not ready to receive the information, he is not going to see the food, even if it is infront of his eyes and free to him. (6). So, your business is far from over. If you are interested in helping the reader of this forum, you will have to find out their needs first. This could be a simple direction, a simple piece of code, or algorithm, or even some lists of references. (7). So, I would encourage you to look into this area, the technology and art of helping readers with high tech products. It is not going to work to raise the standard of education by simply giving every school a Library of Congress. The matching of the need and the product is the key to success. You are already in cfd-forum, so, you can't go back.

(1). When the announcement arrives at the forum, review (or have someone review it) the contents for accuracy. (2). Then put it in the Resources sections (or book sections, because a symposium normally will have a lot of published papers) with reviewer's comments. (3). The books, the symposium, the short courses, the websites,etc can be reviewed on the seasonal basis. (most are announced one year ahead of the time) (4). I think, the new book section is the ideal place. So, there is no need to do extra work or to create new sections. Just place these announcement with review comments in the new book section should be enough to get the readers attention.

(1). I think, your approach is correct. It is consistent with my thinking. (2). Basically, the system can not be forced to change. It will have to seek its own equilibrium point. It is the way of nature, the so-called "Tao".