Well been offered a job training in CFD design for building service's....

Don't know alot about it, so could some1 tell me... about qualifications and training that would help me.

I have had vast experience with CAD and Hevacomp, and Model IT. Also 2 and a half years experience within a building service's consultants.....

HELP.????

(1). I don't quite understand your question. (2). Since you are experienced CAD designer and also have a few years in doing building service, I guess, your question is "Is CFD training going to help you in the building service?" (3). The answer is going to depend on what you do in building service. If it is related to heating and air conditioning, or clean room environment design, then, I would say that CFD has been used in these areas already. It is kind of hard to build it first then do the testing next through trial-and-error approach. (4). On the other hand, even though the current state of the art of CFD in these areas is not mature yet, one can model the building and enviroment on computer without touching the hardware at all. So, in a way, it provides an alternative to model testing. (5). Since the modeling part is essential, CAD experience is definitely essential. As for the CFD part, there are two possibilities,: one is to use available CFD software suitable for the kind of building service you do, the other is to write your own CFD software. The latter approach will require the graduate school training. (6). My suggestion is: talk to more people first, in this way, you will find the right match between your experience and the CFD approach.

FLOVENT from FLOMERICS and AIRPAK from FLUENT/ICEM seem to be the 2 most appropriate packages for HVAC analyses. Both products are based on ease of use. CFX from AEA is probably the best suited general purpose CFD tool but like all general purpose tools requires much investment in training and use to get the best out of it.

FLOVENT has a good pedigree being originally developed by both FLOMERICS and BSRIA. AIRPAK has the inhereted FLUENT CFD technology but hasn't really taken off.

Good luck

Fred.

Mike, the world of cfd is very big and complex. For me it gets more so each day. Your question, as noted by others seems a little unclear. Are you being offered a post as a designer in cfd? or as I suspect as a building services engineering designer applying cfd. Whilst there are major differences in the two both will need you to share some knowledge in areas such as numerical modelling, fluid dynamics, turbulence and turbulence modelling.

It is unfortunate that neither Heavacomp nor ModelIt will have given you a grounding in any of these. They are both making some bold assumptions about one node in the space being representative of the whole domain. Consider how inappropriate this would be, or indeed what value should be chosen, in say an attrium with large solar heat gains.

CFD, in the building services sector is typcally being used to study such things as internal air flows in clean rooms, contaminant distribution, temperature stratification in spaces with atria, and in helping optimise supply and extract locations etc. Other applications include those where pressure losses and pressure loss coeffcients are being investigated for close coupled duct work fittings. Somthing our CIBSE guide does not currently offer.

CFD will give you more of the microscopic behaviour of the flow field rather than the macroscopic as suggested by the Heavacomp and Facet suites.

That said your experince in using computers will provide you with the confidence to help learn your new subject.

A first degree in building services engineering might help. You'll get the maths and the physics of ventilation and hopefully turbulence. Alternatively, as noted earlier, you could try one of the Building services oriented CFD vendors for course information.

You might also like to try Simulation Technology their product is SABRE.