Must-know topics for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)

Question

My undergrad major was Electrical Engineering. My MS thesis is related to simulation of hydrogen movement in a complex geometry. I did take a course on Fluid Dynamics but I have to say it wasn't one of my favorites.

Can someone point out the very basic topics that I must learn to undertake a project on CFD. I bought Cengel's book but its very bulky and I dont have the time to study all of it. My supervisor knows little English and I know little Chinese so I cant count on her much. So online forums are sort of my last resort.

I know this question may look too vague to some of you but instead of down voting it please let someone with the relevant knowledge help me as I am on a tight schedule. (Yes, I know the stackexchange rules, I've been using it for over 4 years)

Answer 1

The book I learned from decades ago was Sabersky and Acosta "Fluid Flow: a First Course in Fluid Mechanics".

There are a number of basic concepts:

• Continuity: mass within a bounding volume, as a function of mass flows across the boundaries.

• Streamlines and the stream function.

• Equations of motion with and without viscosity.

• The Bernoulli equation relating velocity and pressure along a streamline.

• Momentum in a flow, linear and angular.

• Potential flow and superposition.

• The Kutta condition.

• Reynolds number, boundary layers.

• ... and how these apply in practice.

You need the basics before you can do the modeling.

Answer 2

Once you have an understanding of fluid mechanics, the two best books for CFD specifically that I have used are:

Computational Fluid Dynamics by John Anderson. I don't know if you have ever used any of Anderson's fluid dynamics books, but I highly recommend all of them. His books are all very readable and spend most of the text describing what to do rather than giving equations and derivations. This book is good for a first introduction to the subject, but I found it to be very limited as a reference manual. This book is used as a senior-level, undergraduate textbook in CFD.

Computational Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer on the other hand is an almost-complete reference on just about every topic you would encounter in CFD. Tons of information on common numerical schemes for many different types of equations, lots of derivation and explanation of the theory for the methods, etc.. It is a more complete book but I found it to be a bit difficult to jump into without already understanding the basics of CFD. That said, any time I have a question I need to look up or a refresher on concepts, this is the book I pick up now. This is the book used for the textbook in my graduate-level CFD class.

The first book will give you a good, almost narrative overview of CFD, and will provide you with enough information and equations to write or use a basic CFD solver.

The second book will give you the details you need to write or understand almost any solver and will give you the information you would need to understand new research in the area.

Depending on your specific application, I might be able to recommend more books (turbulence, combustion, atmospheric flows, supersonic flows, hypersonic flows, RANS, LES, DNS, etc.). But for an overview of what you need to know and then a list of all the steps and methods you would need to write a fairly general solver, these two are highly recommended.