Computational Fluid Dynamics, once the preserve of the academic or the specialist within large organisation, is a tool which is becoming increasingly available and which is finding growth applications in many industries. The first commercial general purpose CFD software became available in the 1970s with other codes entering the market in the 1980s. The early versions of these codes were difficult to use and had limited capability (certainly in relation to the present day). Competition between the code developers ensured that more and more functionality was incorporated into the software. Development efforts were targeted at faster and more robust solvers and easier to use graphical interfaces.

At the same time, massive increases in the computing power to cost ratio have made the opportunity of conducting complex 3D simulations of real flow problems available to a much wider group of organisations. It is now possible for the non-specialist to set up a CFD simulation and to obtain a converged set of results without fully understanding the flow problem in terms of its physics and the numerical methods used in producing the results. This is potentially very dangerous as the results may be completely erroneous and of little real value. In order to obtain meaningful set of results it is necessary to understand the problem. The model which is set up must reflect the processes which are relevant to the flow being considered. Suitable solution strategies must be chosen carefully and techniques used to aid convergence must be treated with caution as they can significantly affect the solution.

This book is the first volume of a set aimed at assisting the relative newcomer to Computational Fluid Dynamics to obtain meaningful results which can be treated with confidence. This volume introduces basic fluid mechanics principles and shows, through worked examples, how they can be successfully applied to a range of problems. Flows with simple physics are used at the start and where comparison can be made between numerical results, analytical solutions and, when available, experimental results. Gradually, the worked examples allow simplified assumptions to be relaxed and more complex flow physics to be introduced.

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