Landmarks and new frontiers of computational fluid dynamics

Abstract

A narrative of landmarks in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is presented to highlight the cornerstone achievements. Illuminating accomplishments starting from the very beginning of the coherent development until the most recent progress will be elucidated over the span over more than six decades. Meanwhile, the cuttingedge scientific innovations will also be discussed for their lasting impacts to fluid dynamics and the physics-based modeling and simulation discipline. To traverse such a vast domain over time by a single presentation, numerous and excellent contributions to CFD will be unavoidably overlooked. Nevertheless it is my ardent hope that the present discussion will be able to reaffirm excellence in research and to identify new frontiers for scientific research. Especially, the challenges to future innovations will also be delineated to recommend for potential and fertile research areas for the modeling and simulation science.

High-enthalpy hypersonic flows

“…In that situation, an alternative approach by the quantum theory becomes necessary. For this reason, it offers a great opportunity of basic research for chemical kinetics using high performance computational techniques [18].…”

“…5. All simulations are conducted for an axisymmetric hemispherical cylinder at the free stream Mach and Reynolds numbers of 27.89 and 1.38 × 10 4 respectively, and the air temperature is assigned a value of 198.6 k [18]. A huge difference between the perfect gas and chemical reacting gas is clearly discernible under the hypersonic flow condition.…”

“…Under this condition, the energy exchange between air molecules has a greater probability than the translation-vibration transition within the same molecule. Therefore it would be unrealistic for the chemical reactions including quantum jumps to be in an equilibrium state [18,19].…”

“…Along this train of thoughts, it must be pointed out that the laminar-turbulent transition and turbulence that are completely governed by the classic gas kinetic theory remain as the only least understood phenomena in fluid dynamics. These chaotic vorticity interactions, rapid energy cascading and bifurcating physics rightfully belong to the last frontier of basic research [18].…”

Calculation of temperature and velocity fields in the furnace chambers of tube ovens

“…The mathematical model in [4] contains differential equations for the conservation of mass, momentum and energy. The paper [5] highlights the main achievements in computational fluid dynamics, discusses advanced scientific innovations.…”