Design and Optimization of Aerospike Nozzle Using Cfd

High-quality ship airwake grid generated using Cadence Pointwise meshing for an example amphibious transport ship model.

Meshed Propeller

surface mesh for this turbomachinery geometry model

bladed passages and casing treatment flows

28X Increase in Simulation Speed by Using Pointwise Meshes

Read the case study about how ADSCFD applied their GPU accelerated flow solver to the challenge of advanced compressor casing treatment analysis. With typical speedups of nearly 30X, analyses can now be accomplished in a few hours rather than weeks on traditional compute infrastructure.

adapted mesh on the hub surface

Mesh Adaptation that Works!

Read how Pointwise and ISimQ have developed a new mesh adaption process that achieves the hopes and promises of adaption from long ago by removing mesh generator skill from the CFD analysis process to produce consistent, high-quality simulation results.

quad-dominant surface mesh and hex-core volume for NASA's Common Research Model

Mesh and Run a High-Fidelity Aircraft Simulation in Minutes

Boost productivity while simultaneously ensuring consistency and reliability across your organization. In this webinar, our new intelligent, automatic surface meshing feature set meets unprecedented CFD solver speed as we go from geometry import to post-processed results for a benchmark aircraft geometry in minutes.

Question mark on blue and grey background

Specify meshing goals, visualize sizing, and automatically generate an unstructured surface mesh.

Solution Based Mesh

Improve CFD Efficiency with Solution-Based Mesh Adaptation

Improve CFD simulation efficiency and accuracy using solution adapted meshing. In this webinar, we detail the process for developing a solution-based mesh adaptation schema. Solution driven mesh adaptation can accelerate the convergence rate by 50 percent or more, while simultaneously reducing estimated error by an order of magnitude.

A hybrid quad-dominant grid was generated for the 2-D burner and heat exchanger configuration.

Reducing Boiler Emissions Through Shape Optimization

In this presentation, Pointwise and SU2 are used to reduce pollutant emissions in heat exchangers. Through adjoint-based shape optimization of the heat exchanger geometry coupled with automated re-meshing, harmful CO and NOx emissions are minimized.

High Order Mesh Generation at Pointwise

Watch the presentation, "High Order Mesh Generation at Pointwise," presented by John Stone from CFD Technologies at the PyFR Symposium 2020. The presentation explains the mesh curving process in Pointwise.

meshed tractor trailer

Velocity magnitude contour through the rotor housing captured using the κ-Omega Shear Stress Transport (SST) turbulence model.

Rod Bundle Mesh

Pointwise Enables Accurate CFD for Nuclear Reactor Rod Bundles

Obtaining accurate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for nuclear reactor rod bundles can be extremely challenging due to the complex geometry of the rods and wrapped wires. Automatic unstructured meshing techniques do not provide enough control over the mesh for the wire-wrapped rod bundles. Multiple Pointwise meshing techniques were used to capture the complex geometry. A fully structured mesh was used near the boundaries, and a hex-dominant unstructured mesh was used away from the boundaries to enable an accurate CFD solution for a 19-rod nuclear reactor rod bundle with ANSYS CFX. Pointwise provides a great deal of control and different techniques that can be used to make high-quality meshes for extremely complex geometries.

Michael Bottcher presenting at the 2018 Pointwise User Group Meeting

MARS Meshing & Adaptive Re-meshing Server

Automated Meshing and Adaptive Re-meshing at Bombardier

Watch a webinar where Amine Ben Haj Ali from Bombardier explains the Meshing & Adaptive Re-meshing Server (MARS) which automatically generates meshes. This reduces meshing time and ensures consistent meshes across geometry variations no matter who is using it.

John Dennenhoffer presenting at the 2018 Pointwise User Group Meeting

Converting Clouds of Points to a Boundary Representation

Watch a presentation given at the Pointwise User Group Meeting by Professor John Dannenhoffer of Syracuse University explaining his techniques for fitting a cloud of points with a smooth, watertight, B-spline based boundary representation. This technology has been incorporated into Pointwise to allow higher quality meshing on discrete geometry.

The potsdam propeller in its actual form

Accurate Performance Predictions for Marine Propellers

Engineers from two different companies teamed up to try to simulate a set of experiments using the Potsdam propeller. The mesh was completed using Pointwise and the simulation was done using TCFD. The results match well across a range of operating conditions.

Ice shape on a UAV airfoil from icing wind tunnel experiments.

Simulation of in-flight icing on UAVs

In-flight icing is a severe hazard to all aircraft and has been a point of concern for manned aviation for many years. UAVs are a new technology, and icing only recently has been addressed as a key limitation to UAV operations. Watch a webinar on how to use icing simulations on unmanned aerial vehicles to develop ice protection systems.

Dan Combest Presenting at the 2018 User Group Meeting

HVAC duct

Solution Mesh

anisotropic prism elements (green) followed by isotropic tetrahedra (purple)

CAD-Based Design Optimization of a Race Car Front Wing

In this webinar, Phoenix Integration and Pointwise demonstrate push-button design optimization for the front wing of a race car geometry. The tools and methodology used are highlighted and a design resulting in maximum downforce is identified.

Example of CFD results for a clean and iced airfoil

How to Mesh a Frozen Drone

Icing is a severe hazard that significantly limits the usage of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) methods are a vital tool for understanding the effects of icing on UAVs. One of the most challenging tasks for the simulation is the generation of high-quality meshes of complex ice shapes. Find out how Pointwise met the challenge and decreased the mesh creation time with its automation.

unstructured meshes on the impeller and diffuser sections of a supercritical carbon dioxide compressor

CFD Simulation of Supercritical CO2 Power Cycles

A team of engineers at CRAFT Tech set out to model an experimental supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO2) compressor configuration. The engineers needed software that would resolve flow gradients with a minimum number of grid points and be flexible enough to provide the best grid for each region of the machine that they were modeling. They found both these solutions in Pointwise.

Jeremy Shipman presenting at the 2018 Pointwise User Group Meeting

Bruce Hilbert presenting at the Pointwise User Group Meeting

Miami Design Pavilion

Pointwise Enables Revolutionary Building Construction

Branch Technology recognizes a problem with efficiency, cost, and effectiveness in building construction. They leverage inspiration from nature and large scale robotic additive manufacturing to revolutionize building construction and became the first company to 3D print large-scale structures. Using Pointwise for structured mesh generation enables Branch Technology to increase reliability of their process while simultaneously decreasing the time to generate printer instructions. Learn how Pointwise reduces the time for generating 3D printed instructions from weeks to hours.

Simulation of Unsteady Propeller Blade Loads Using OpenFOAM®

Pointwise for Marine CFD Simulation Workshop

Download the presentations from the Pointwise for Marine Workshop to learn how to increase CFD simulation accuracy and efficiency with meshing flexibility. You will also see technical background information about the how and why of the meshing techniques developed and honed with many years of experience in Pointwise.

DrivAer mesh

Pointwise for Automotive CFD Simulation Workshop

Download the presentations from the Pointwise for Automotive Workshop to learn how to increase automotive simulation accuracy and efficiency with meshing flexibility. You will also see technical background information about the how and why of the meshing techniques developed and honed with many years of experience in Pointwise.

Additional mesh control is available through Pointwise sources (in orange) to locally specify mesh sizes

flow solution at freestream Mach number of 0.85

New Features in Pointwise V18.3

In this webinar, we demonstrate the marquee features in Pointwise V18.3. Explore the ability to use regular hexahedral cells to fill the space between the final T-Rex front and the farfield topology. This technique improves the accuracy of your CFD solution. Examine your mesh with a redesigned Examine command focused on ease of use.

Slice through a hybrid-viscous mesh topology

Mesh Strategies for the FDA Benchmark Centrifugal Blood Pump

Learn how a hybrid-viscous mesh can improve solution efficiency. For many applications, structured meshes are preferred. However, if more efficient meshing techniques are possible and provide accurate solutions, exploration of those alternatives is imperative. In this webinar, we compare solutions obtained using a hybrid-viscous mesh with a multi-block structured mesh.

wind farm mesh

Hybrid Conformal Meshing for Wind Farm CFD Applications

Learn more about techniques that can be used to generate hybrid conformal meshes that span the entirety of a wind farm. In this webinar, we discuss how to efficiently move from the terrain scale of a wind farm to the wind turbine scale and how the process was automated to support the arbitrary placement of wind turbines for siting applications.

Example of curved mesh generated in Pointwise software

Ryan Glasby presenting High Order Results from DoD HPCMP CREATETM-AV Kestrel

simulation of trucks

Using CFD to Help Increase the Safety of Driverless Cars

Autonomous vehicles are expected to become a viable form of transportation sometime in the first half of this century. One of the major hurdles will be to provide these cars with the artificial intelligence they need to position themselves in a location where there is less drag for optimal fuel efficiency, travel time, and stability. Ultimately, it should lead to fewer serious accidents and safer roads. Find out how Pointwise is helping researchers in the automotive industry do that.

Automatically generated mesh after three user-independent iterations of mesh adaptation

Pointwise and the Evolution of Faster, Easier, More Reliable Automated Meshing

Generating high-quality automated meshes for CFD analysis has been an industry goal for more than 30 years. Meshing solution developers have spent much of those years trying to create user-independent solutions, only to be stymied by the inherent complexities of geometry models, the mesh, and the CFD solution. Pointwise researchers have made tremendous strides in this area lately by building on the work of others over the last three decades. As a result, they expect to release several new features very soon that will help make automated meshing a reality. Find out more about these latest advances.

Nick Wyman presents Recent Developments in Pointwise Applied Research at the 2018 User Group Meeting

Technical Paper cover

Automatic Unstructured Mesh Generation with Geometry Attribution

Download the technical paper presented at AIAA SciTech 2019 that describes a process that automatically creates unstructured meshes from water-tight geometry input using Glyph scripting. Utilizing this process, one can reduce meshing time by up to 90 percent and manual input from hours to minutes.

Dr. Karman presenting at the 2018 Pointwise User Group Meeting

Automatic Unstructured Mesh Generation with Geometry Attribution

Watch a presentation given at the Pointwise User Group Meeting about how Pointwise used custom Glyph scripts to automatically generate high-quality unstructured meshes for Engineering Sketch Pad (ESP) geometries, saving time and freeing users from repetitive and tedious tasks.

Dragon space capsule, from the ESP example case gallery

Unstructured quad-dominant mesh on an APC Slow Flyer 8 x 3.8 propeller

Rapid Viscous CFD Mesh Generation on Propellers

Learn strategies to quickly construct a high-quality viscous mesh for a model aircraft propeller. These strategies can be used to accurately capture relevant blade geometry as well as efficiently resolve the surface curvature and boundary layer.

The Potsdam Propeller test case geometry is an extensively tested ship propeller model

Hybrid Meshing Key to Improving CFD Simulation Efficiency

Read the case study, "Hybrid Meshing Key to Improving CFD Simulation Efficiency," which summarizes how a T-Rex hybrid grid showed up to a seven-fold improvement in solution efficiency compared to other approaches in predicting thrust and torque for a marine propeller.

A Q2 high-order mesh

High-Order Mesh Generation Using Pointwise

There are two primary challenges associated with the degree elevation of linear elements: boundary conformance and curving of high aspect ratio cells encountered within the boundary layer region. In this webinar, we address these challenges and show how to improve CFD solution accuracy by generating boundary conforming, high-order meshes.

A comparison of initial and adapted surface grids on an ONERA M6 wing.

Reducing Discretization Error with Mesh Adaptation

Learn how mesh adaptation can improve CFD solution accuracy. Mesh adaptation can automatically add finer mesh resolution in areas where it is needed by examining an error metric or flow gradients to determine where the existing mesh is not adequately resolving the flow.

Mixed element hybrid unstructured mesh

Meshing Strategies for Propulsion Aerodynamics

Several meshing techniques and meshing best-practices have been developed while creating workshop-supplied meshes for the 3rd and 4th AIAA Propulsion Aerodynamics Workshops. These meshing strategies and lessons learned have been collected to help CFD practitioners gather experience meshing these types of challenging internal flow problems.

White paper cover

The Ultimate Guide to Writing Import and Export Plugins

One of the most frequent requests that Pointwise receives is to add native import and export capability for a grid file format. Unfortunately, there are not enough hours in the workday to fulfill all of these requests. For that reason, a plugin capability has been made available so you can easily write your own importer or exporter.

Overset data displayed on a persistent cut for a marine propeller mesh

Hybrid unstructured mesh for the Potsdam Propeller Test Case (PPTC) created in Pointwise V18.1

Meshing the Potsdam Propeller Test Case (PPTC) in Pointwise

The Potsdam Propeller Test Case (PPTC) is a benchmark case used for assessing the accuracy of existing computer codes and modeling strategies in simulating hydrodynamic propeller performance. The controllable pitch propeller design was tested at several different conditions and has a wealth of experimental data for CFD validation.

V8 Supercar doing a burnout

Pointwise delivers fast, accurate results for Garry Rogers Motorsport

Due to governing body rule changes, Garry Rogers Motorsport needed to design and build a completely new V8 Supercar without blowing their budget and schedule. By moving their CFD meshing to Pointwise, Garry Rogers Motorsport was able to significantly reduce their hours spent generating meshes while also having a great deal of confidence in the results.

A hybrid mesh for the PPTC geometry

A point cloud source consisting of more than two-million points

Towards Mesh Adaptation with Pointwise

This webinar introduces a feature currently in development for mesh adaptation. It accepts from the flow solver a point cloud on which target cell sizes are specified. This point cloud is used as a clustering source in Pointwise to adapt both the volume and surface meshes.

Curvature on the VeloX 7 using Pointwise tools

Pointwise Aids Bid to Make World's Fastest Bike

The Human Power Team is comprised of students with a shared goal: to build a highly advanced recumbent bicycle capable of breaking the world record for the fastest human alive. We will put our bike, the VeloX, to the test for the seventh time in the annual World Human Powered Speed Challenge in Battle Mountain, Nevada. This year the Human Power Team will focus purely on the world record for women, which was set at 121.81 km/h by Barbara Buatois in 2010.

serpentine inlet

Multi-block Structured Meshing of a Diffusing S-Duct

In this webcast, we use a diffusing serpentine inlet to demonstrate some of the more advanced structured meshing techniques available in Pointwise. These meshing strategies highlight how Pointwise users can generate uniform, boundary-layer resolved grids with exceptional cell shape quality where the inlet's shape transitions from something with a square cross-section upstream to a circular shape at the exit.

A hybrid viscous volume mesh for the optimized surfboard design was created using Pointwise's T-Rex algorithm

A hybrid viscous volume mesh for the optimized surfboard design

Word cloud of programming languages

Glyph Scripting with Python in Pointwise

In this video, we demonstrate how to configure the Glyph Server in Pointwise and add support for scripting languages including Python. We will also introduce example Python scripts that highlight the utility and value of these new Glyph features.

Geometric symmetry was used to allow only meshing of one-fourth of the problem domain

Pointwise Aids in Aerospike Nozzle Analysis

Aerospike rocket nozzles offer increased efficiency over a wider operating pressure range than traditional nozzles. In this study, we compare CFD and experimental predictions of aerospike nozzle thrust for varying pressure ratios and base bleed rates.

critical region of a mesh

Numerical Investigation of a Pick-and-Place Machine

Students at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden investigated the performance of a pick-and-place machine using CFD. Pointwise was used to perform a grid refinement study for a static simulation where the nozzle of the machine as well as the distance to the component varied. Additionally, an overset mesh was generated for a 1-DOF dynamic simulation.

Nearly tangent feature lines in the geometry model

Mesh Generation for the NASA HL-CRM

Pointwise is supporting two AIAA workshops (the 3rd High Lift Prediction and the 1st Geometry and Mesh Generation Workshop) to be held prior to AIAA Aviation in June 2017. We generated several type of meshes (unstructured, hybrid, hybrid overset, and high order) for the NASA High Lift Common Research Model that are described here.

A hybrid boundary layer resolved volume mesh

Unstructured Quad & Hex Meshing Using Pointwise

Watch a webinar where applying simple changes to existing meshes with Pointwise's quad meshing for surfaces hex meshing for boundary layers will generate smaller, more efficient meshes in a highly automated manner.

Isosurface of Q-criterion of the spinning rotor hub, colored by normalized velocity

Rotorcraft Hub Wake Analysis Using Overset Meshes

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University's Applied Research Laboratory share an overview of their ongoing work involving overset grid CFD simulations of an incompressible rotorcraft hub they performed using the overset meshing tools available in Pointwise.

Pointwise GUI and simulation

Mastering Geometry Cleanup Tasks in Pointwise

This video provides an overview of Pointwise's suite of tools for creating a meshing-ready geometry model. Included are geometry model import, tolerance verification and setting, techniques for healing gaps between surfaces, recreating missing geometry, and more.

This slice through the volume mesh shows triangular prism cells in the boundary layer and isotropic tetrahedral cells in the farfield

The Stanford Solar Car Project's Race for Aerodynamic Efficiency

Chasing the Sun 3000 km across the Australian Outback is a challenge. And doing it in a solar powered vehicle is an even bigger challenge. But every two years the Stanford Solar Car Project, a student-run organization, arrives in Australia with a new design ready to take on the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. This article summarizes the simulation driven design framework that enabled the team to analyze over 40 design iterations and improve the aerodynamic efficiency of their 2015 car, Arctan.

IFCPT S-Duct integrated in the Georgia Tech Transonic Tunnel

Meshing Overview & S-Duct Results from the 3rd Propulsion Aerodynamics Workshop

Pointwise provided a set of standard grids for workshop participants to use at this year's 3rd Propulsion Aerodynamics Workshop in Salt Lake City, Utah. These grids were created using several new features available in Pointwise's upcoming V18 release. An overview of some of these features and the workshop grids is provided. Some initial steady-state results for the S-Duct using these grids and NASA's FUN3D solver are presented.

Various meshed components of the DrivAer benchmark model

Solution for a heat exchanger with an additional cooling channel

Automating Geometry and Mesh Generation for Heat Exchangers

Maura Gallarotti, a master's student at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, used Pointwise Glyph scripting to quickly generate families of candidate heat exchanger designs and to perform parametric studies by changing the dimensions of several geometrical parameters to assess the effect of these parameters on cooling efficiency. With no experience using Pointwise and having never heard about Tcl/Tk or Glyph she was able to write a script to completely automate the grid generation process in less than a week.

Hybrid volume mesh generated for the solar car using Pointwise's T-Rex algorithm

Blocking topologies created in Pointwise for TN-01

North America's Largest 3-D Printed Structure Started as a Mesh

While the folks at Pointwise appreciate the beauty and utility of grids, usually the computational meshes produced by our software are used as an intermediate step in a customer's engineering analysis process and not as the final goal of the project. However, Branch Technology, with its novel freeform 3-D printing techniques actually turns these meshes into physical structures that can be used as building elements or as seen here, works of art.

A constant x-plane cut through the mesh that highlights near body, right-angled tetrahedra cells created using Pointwise's T-Rex advancing layer technique

Revisiting Output-Based Mesh Adaptation

Mesh adaptation techniques in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) applications have matured substantially over the years, yet still few people seem to be leveraging them to their advantage. In this article, some background on why you should be using mesh adaptation to make sure important flow features are resolved without an inordinately large overall cell count is presented along with an example using Pointwise and NASA's FUN3D solver.

Resulting adapted mesh and pressure coefficient (Cp) contours for flow around an ONERA M6 wing

Automobile overset mesh solution

Instantaneous flow visualization of the 1:8.7 scale, axial flow water turbine

High Fidelity Overset Structured Mesh Generation for Marine Hydrokinetic Devices

Researchers at The Pennsylvania State University used the overset grid assembly tools in Pointwise to generate high-quality structured overset meshes for analysis of a horizontal axis water turbine. The flexibility offered by overset grids made it easy for them to add higher resolution grid blocks to resolve regions with high flow gradients like the turbine blade tips, wakes and tip vortices. This resulted in good agreement with experimental data even for flow details like the interaction between blade wakes and the support tower.

Pointwise 24th IMR poster submission

Meshing the 24th IMR Fender® Jazzmaster Guitar and the Abdominal Atlas

Last month several Pointwise engineers attended the 24th International Meshing Roundtable (IMR) held in Austin, Texas. We brought two grids generated for two benchmark geometries provided by the IMR steering committee. The grids were made by Carolyn Woeber, Travis Carrigan, and myself. We were pleased to hear that the grids were recognized both for their technical merit and striking visuals - they had won the Meshing Contest award.

Glyph Script in Pointwise GUI

Getting Started with Glyph Scripting

By watching this video, you will uncover the power of Pointwise's Glyph scripting language. We will introduce the language's syntax, share our best practices, and provide reference materials. The entire process will be demonstrated as we write a script.

Modified T-Rex parameters

High quality viscous layer blocks

OpenVSP and Glyph Scripting in Pointwise

The rear wing area was resolved with anisotropic tetrahedral extrusion (T-Rex) anisotropic grids.

University of South Florida Races with Pointwise

The University of South Florida's Formula SAE racing team, USF Racing, placed 6th overall out of more than 80 teams competing at the Formula SAE competition in Lincoln, Nebraska in June 2015. Using Pointwise helped the team to have a successful season. Pointwise's Glyph scripting allowed for multiple simulations providing good performance estimations for their vehicle's aerodynamic package.

A Cut plane highlighting cells extruded from the model's surface.

Integrating OpenVSP and Pointwise for High-Fidelity CAE in Conceptual Design

Pointwise recently attended the OpenVSP Workshop 2015 hosted by NASA Langley and demonstrated Glyph scripting for automated viscous anisotropic meshing of a transport aircraft from OpenVSP. With recently added support in OpenVSP 3 for exporting models as STEP files, users now have an easy way to use an analytical geometry representation in Pointwise. The Glyph script automates the meshing process and provides a recipe for recommended meshing practices that new users can adopt when creating their own meshes in Pointwise.

Hybrid volume mesh generated for the full DrivAer model using Pointwise's T-Rex with cells colored by volume.

Unstructured tetrahedral cells grid used for making mask function

Direct Numerical Simulation of Woodwind Aeroacoustics

Researchers at Toyohashi University of Technology in Japan have used detailed DNS calculations of the flow through a recorder to better understand its sound generation mechanisms and give guidance for future instrument designs.

CFD++ results for the 0 degree angle of attack case show the flow structures around the control jet.

screenshot of scripting in Pointwise

An Introduction to Pointwise Plugin Development

Your mesh and its boundary conditions can be exported to a file format of your design with a CAE Export Plugin. This webinar provides an overview of how to write your own plugin using Pointwise's application programming interface (API).

Garry Rogers Motorsports Continues Racing Success with Pointwise

watertight hybrid surface mesh

A boundary layer-resolved mesh created with Pointwise's anisotropic tetrahedral extrusion (T-Rex) technique

Large Scale Aircraft Design Using SU2 and Pointwise

SU2 is an open-source collection of C++ and Python-based software for multi-physics, including computational fluid dynamics (CFD). This article discusses three design cases using SU2 with Pointwise: a transonic aircraft, a supersonic aircraft, and student-designed solar car.

creating a script in Pointwise GUI

Introduction to Scripting in Pointwise

In this video, we present a basic introduction to scripting in Pointwise and lay the framework for customization of the meshing process through scripts. Scripting in Pointwise is accomplished with Glyph, an extension of Tcl.

Surface metal temperature distributions for the HITRT 1st vane row

Turbine Blade Film Cooling Optimization with CFD

Pointwise and CFD Code Leo were used in a conjugate heat transfer analysis to optimize film cooling for the Air Force Research Lab High-Impact Technologies Research Turbine. The result is a more uniform temperature distribution over the turbine blades.

Mach contours at the missile's nose and base

grid topology on fillet

Advanced Structured Grid Techniques

This video focuses on techniques for creating structured hexahedral grids with Pointwise. The relative merits of hexahedral versus tetrahedral elements on cell-centered finite volume simulations will be discussed, with special attention given to the sources and mitigation of numerical diffusion.

The shear-slip layer, shown in gray, is the boundary between the stationary farfield mesh and the rotating mesh around the rotor of the wind turbine.

Fluid-Structure Interaction on Wind Turbine Rotor Blades

Researchers at RWTH Aachen University are studying fluid-structure interaction on wind turbine rotor blades to develop strategies to increase their life expectancy and reliability. They use Pointwise's T-Rex for control over the meshing process.

This is a surface mesh created using Pointwise for the generic transport model.

OpenVSP and Pointwise Work Together to Simplify CFD on New Vehicle Designs

OpenVSP is an open source, parametric modeler used to quickly capture design intent so geometry information is easily provided in the appropriate form for various uses, including CFD. Therefore, several approaches were explored by which OpenVSP and Pointwise could be integrated to automate the volume meshing process for CFD.

Sample solution computed using OpenFOAM

SU2-Pointwise Joint Workshop

This view of the aircraft body shows the boundary of the unstructured tetrahedral mesh

comparing 3 volute meshes

geometry for the partially-dressed, closed-cavity nose landing gear

The Volvo CFD model in an attitude to replicate straight line aero testing.

Example of the strategy to generate the engine mesh for the simulation of a transparent combustion engine

Unsteady Engine Analysis with Moving Mesh in OpenFOAM®

Researchers at Politecnico di Milano have used Pointwise and OpenFOAM® along with moving, non-conformal mesh interfaces to analyze internal combustion engine performance. Their results on two benchmark cases compare well with experimental data.

Flow visualization based on an iso-surface of ‖ ∇ × v ‖ − ‖ v ‖.

CFD solution computed using SU2 captures high resolution shock structures present on the surface of the aircraft and propagating well into the farfield.

Original wind turbine in the NASA Ames wind tunnel (source: NREL), left. On the right, CAD model of geometry which is used within the simulation.

Co-Simulation for the Renewable Energy Sector

Many simulations within the field of renewable energy involve the coupling of different physics. An exemplary example is the analysis of a wind turbine. Here the structure (blades, tower, generator, gearbox, etc.) is interacting with the fluid.

This structured 2D grid for a Rao parabolic nozzle was generated by Pointwise and imported into ANSYS Fluent

Computational Optimization of Rocket Engine Nozzles

The primary aim of this project was to investigate the capability of using modern commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) packages (Pointwise and ANSYS Fluent®) as tools for analysis and design of rocket engine nozzles.

structured grid to detect aneurysm

Structured Grid for an Aneurysm

Beginning with a faceted geometry model of an arterial aneurysm, this webinar demonstrates how to generate a multi-block structured grid with O-H topology quickly and with high quality.

OpenFOAM MRF Solution for the Baffled Mixing Tank

The final unstructured surface mesh for the electric motor illustrates where clustering was applied

Close up view of the unstructured surface mesh on the rear wing

Pointwise Helps UTA Racing Push Aerodynamic Envelope

University of Texas at Arlington's (UTA) racing partnership with Pointwise during the past three years has resulted in an influx of aggressive aerodynamic development for the UTA Formula SAE race cars. The grid generation software has been crucial in several developments that have resulted in significant improvements to the wing packages on the cars.

Details of the mesh with cuts showing minimum cell angles

CFD Investigation of LBE Rod Bundle Flow

LBE is a eutectic mixture consisting of 45 percent lead and 55 percent bismuth. It is foreseen as a possible coolant for Generation IV nuclear reactor systems. The most interesting properties of LBE in comparison with lead and water are presented in Table 1.

Hybrid meshing coupled with complex multi-phase cavitation models

Decomposed Pressure Iso surfaces showing the helical distribution of a PVC

Gas Turbine Combustor Mixing at Cranfield

Natural gas accounts for more than 23 percent of the world's energy production. Although it is not used in airplane engines because of its large storage volume, it has become widespread in industrial gas turbines and is the fuel of choice for many to plug the "energy gap" within the United Kingdom.

Exit guide module created by revolving a hybrid unstructured mesh block

Close-up view of daggerfoil illustrating predicted surface pressures

Emirates Team New Zealand Uses Pointwise for AC72 Hydrodynamics Design

The 34th America's Cup will be contested this fall in San Francisco Bay in high-speed, high-tech, hydrofoiling catamarans hitting speeds upwards of 40 kts (more than 46 miles per hour). These new AC72 class catamarans are 72 feet long (22 m), 46 feet wide (14 m) with a wing mast towering 131 feet (40 m) above the water.

The wing boundary layer grid surrounding the Discrete roughness elements

Texas A&M Uses Pointwise Meshes for Boundary Layer Stability Analysis

Researchers at Texas A&M University are studying boundary layer stability to gain insight into how transitions from laminar to turbulent flow occur. Their research has applications from low-speed flows in which the laminar-turbulent transition location affects drag and flow separation characteristics to hypersonic flows in which the difference between low laminar and much higher turbulent heating rates can determine whether a space vehicle will successfully pass through the atmosphere or burn up on reentry.

Surace mesh on a dragonfly

Mesh Manipulation for Moving Surfaces

Many aerospace-related applications exist that require surfaces to move within a given region. This can include bodies moving relative to each other, as happens during a store separation, or surfaces actually changing shape, which is what happens with ablation and aeroelasticity.

wheel section mesh

Pointwise Gives GRM a Time-Savings Edge in V8 Supercar Design

Garry Rogers Motorsport (GRM) is one of the most enduring racing teams in Australian motorsport and this year we are celebrating 50 years of racing involvement. The team competes in the hotly contested V8 Supercar championship, which is regarded as one of the finest touring car racing categories in the world.

Velocity contours around the fan and housing

Syracuse University Gets CFD Work Spinning

At Syracuse University, a mixed group of both graduate and undergraduate students had the opportunity to participate in a project involving an innovative new wing design. Overseen by Prof. Thong Dang, the team sought to analyze this new design to determine its practicality and effectiveness.

Mesh surfaces in a typical simulation

Close-up of the smooth, orthogonal mesh created in the slat cove to help capture the aero-acoustically generated noise.

Mesh Generation for Airframe Noise Computations

As a company, one of Pointwise's goals is to be a good advocate of the meshing and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) communities. Being an advocate means participating in technical conferences and workshops and with other community members in a non-partisan way.

CFD++ solution of the North American Eagle

Case B1 time average x-velocity.

Drag Effects of Heating and Cooling Cylinders in Crossflow

The reduction of the drag force on all types and shapes of objects has historically been, and remains, a major focus of aerodynamicists and fluid mechanics researchers everywhere. Aircraft, automobiles, rockets, boats, and a multitude of other devices and components suffer from the ill effects of viscous and form drag.

Structured mesh on DTMB 5415 ship hull

Checking integrity of the solid model in model assembly

From CAD to CFD in Five Minutes

Customers have written many articles about how they apply Pointwise for their real applications. We have written many articles describing benefits about the features in Pointwise. However, these articles rarely describe the full meshing process in any detail.

T-Rex Mesh on the NASA CRM Transonic Aircraft Geometry

T-Rex mesh for a UAV

Unstructured Viscous Boundary Layer Meshing: T-Rex

For the complex geometries encountered in modern analyses, creating boundary layer resolved meshes can be tedious and error prone. Pointwise's anisotropic tetrahedral extrusion method, T-Rex, is a robust and highly automated method for creating unstructured boundary layer meshes on complex geometries.

hybrid mesh

Streamlines around a golf club

hybrid mesh for NASA Common Research Model aircraft

CFD ready viscous multiblock structured mesh

High Stagger Angle Rotor Structured Mesh

Wind Turbine Hybrid Mesh

How to Master Hybrid Meshing for Wind Turbines

During this webinar, you will learn how to save time creating CFD meshes on the Sandia National Lab CX100 horizontal axis wind turbine using a combination of Pointwise's structured and unstructured mesh techniques.

Wind Turbine Mesh

Naval Ship Hull CAD

Working with Dirty CAD While Meshing a Naval Ship Hull

Pointwise reduces the time needed for mesh completion with its flexible techniques for dealing with dirty geometry. In this 45 minute webinar, you will learn how to deal with and clean up the geometry on the U.S. Navy Surface Combatant DTMB 5415 ship hull.

DARPA HIREP Axial Pump

The Grid Merge command can be used to find and repair topology issues.

Examining the quality of an unstructured block.

Steady laminar flow pathlines colored by vorticity magnitude over a preliminary fairing design

Students' Experience with Pointwise in WVU Introduction to CFD Course

After just a few hands-on tutorial sessions, engineering seniors and graduate students at West Virginia University (WVU) were able to generate a variety of grids using Pointwise, learning how mesh topology, dimensionality, and resolution affect solution accuracy for a variety of internal and external flow problems.

Tetrahedral grid of the shore-based test facility.

Enlisting CFD in the Fight Against Ballast-Water Borne Organisms

The world's fleet of approximately 45,000 cargo ships transports around 8,000 million tons of cargo per year. What is, perhaps, somewhat less known is that these ships also transport some unwanted hitch-hikers in the form of organisms that get scooped up when ballast water is taken on.

Advanced fin design.

CFD pressure contours in the inlet and combustion chamber of the axisymmetric flowpath to be flow on SCRAMSPACE I.

Sculpted impeller designed with the Pointwise-based meshing tool.

Meshing Centrifugal Stages for CFD and FEA Is Easy with Pointwise

Cameron's Compression Systems in Buffalo, NY, is a leading worldwide provider of integrally geared centrifugal compressors. The company, which has been in the business for more than 50 years, designs and manufactures highly customized centrifugal compressors for air separation and process gas businesses worldwide.

Structured surface grid on dual flow chevron nozzle geometry.

Pointwise Works to Make Aircraft Quieter

The goal of NASA's Quiet Aircraft Technology (QAT) program is to reduce perceived aircraft noise by 50 percent in 10 years and by 75 percent in 25 years, using 1997 levels as the baseline.

A portion of the Kaplan runner grid.

Weir American Hydro Comes Up to Speed Quickly

Weir American Hydro is a leading supplier and installer of hydroturbines and pumps for hydroelectric power generation. They have a particular strength in improving the efficiency of existing power stations.

Mesh of rear wing.

Meshing is Vital to Formula SAE at UTA

Over the past year, use of Pointwise for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) mesh generation has helped increase productivity drastically on the Formula SAE team at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Skin friction lines and pressure contours showing the strut/wall interaction.

T-Rex mesh on the centerline of an F-16 fighter jet.

T-Rex Hybrid Meshing in Pointwise

3D anisotropic tetrahedral extrusion (otherwise known as T-Rex) will be released soon, but the 2D surface mesh formulation of T-Rex already is available for you to use in Pointwise V16.04.

2-D cut of structured region following the container motion as the surrounding unstructured region is dynamically meshed around it.

A cut through the tetrahedral volume grid colored by cell volume

Coupling CFD and Thermal Analyses with Pointwise

Engineers from W.R. Davis Limited and Pointwise, Inc. collaborated on a project to couple the ShipIR thermal analysis software with ANSYS Fluent® computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software for more accurate prediction of infrared signatures of naval vessels.

A typical simulation domain consisting of a cylindrical tube packed randomly with contacting spheres

Automating Porous Flow Meshing with Glyph

At Oregon State University, researchers in the Computational Flow Physics Lab (CFPL) are using large scale, high resolution simulations to better understand flow through complex porous media.

Turbulence intensity plots are used to assess loads on wind turbines.

Design and Optimization of Aerospike Nozzle Using Cfd

Source: https://www.pointwise.com/solutions/