CFD

[yoshimitsuspeed]

I found a similar idea for wind tunnel but CFD goes far beyond that. I would assume there were similar idea here but didn't see them in a search so I am putting this here.
I'm not sure about others but for me CFD would be a way higher priority than FEA. It's kind of a shame to see it not being implimented in a similar timeframe. I have talked to people and heard it might be a someday kind of thing. If AD is going to put FEA ahead of drawings and all the other higher priority weak points F360 has then CFD should be just as high a priority.

Same goes for project Arro. A shame to see so much development into FEA with no real mention of CFD.

[kb9ydn]

I am by no means an expert on FEA or CFD, but I think there are two factors at work here.  One is that CFD is significantly more complex than FEA, so fitting it into Fusion is a much more difficult task.  The other is that (I would bet) many more people will have use for static stress analysis (FEA) than CFD, so adding FEA first makes sense.

That said, it would be freaking awesome to have even basic CFD in Fusion.

C|

[patrik-web]

I agree with kb9ydn. It seems that either the CFD would be too simplified to be useful or it would be too complex for most people to know what to do with. It also doesn't really seem to fit that well within F360. For a CFD, only the surface matters. If you need to do a real CFD analysis, exporting your model as an STL doesn't seem like a significant obstacle. Stress analysis, on the other hand, depends on the internal design of the part, precisely what you are modeling in F360.

[yoshimitsuspeed]

It seems to me on the back end FEA must be at least as complex as CFD.
I am actually very surprised there aren't more people more seriously interested in this. I mean there are so many things that basic CFD would be awesome for. Kind of like Flow design. In fact I am surprised that flow design doesn't just do a little more. I mean a basic wind tunnel is awesome but severly limiting to what you can do with it. Since it has all the math already taken care of it seems like AD could just add a way to route it through something like an intake manifold, radiator, etc but for whatever reason it doesn't so as far as AD goes you have Flow design that does only wind tunnel, then you have $30k software that does everything. It seems like there should be some middle ground.

Now @patrik-web it would be awesome not to need to export but that's not the end of the world. It's to import into what is the question? I am not dropping $30k on CFD software. I have played a little with Openfoam and similar programs but I don't have hundreds of hours to figure them out and make them do what I want. So is there a decent program I could import an intake manifold or something like that into that I could do some basic CFD on for a reasonable price?

Flow design is actually pretty cool. I just wish it did more than just wind tunnel.

[patrik-web]

Oh I agree that it would be awesome, but I just know barely enough about CFD to be wary. It's one of those "garbage in - garbage out" situations, and there are so many regimes (viscid vs inviscid, compressible vs incompressible, turbulent vs laminar, etc) that need to be handled that it just ends up being very complex. I suspect the reason OpenFoam takes hundreds of hours to figure out, and that other software is $30k, is exactly that, and I'm not convinced it's a reasonable thing for the F360 team to pour resources into.

[yoshimitsuspeed]

Yet for $30 a month I can get wind tunnel CFD. Seems like there is a bit of a gap there.
I definitely understand the garbage in garbage out idea but at the same time I do believe there are many situations where some basic theory could go a long way. I assume flow design can't do nearly what the high end software can in wind tunnel testing yet it still holds value in some situations. In a similar way, I am sure that high end CFD with someone who knew how to use it would net much more accurate results with finer resolution and attention to detail but a simpler program could still tell me if it had awful air distribution or other major flaws.

[MikeSmell_ADSK]

Hi folks, 

Thanks for the engagement on the topic of CFD. We are currently investigating this for future availability in Fusion. Stay tuned. 

[yoshimitsuspeed]

Thanks for the update.
Is there anything out now or anything closer on the horizon for beta testing through sim studio or anything like that?