Talking CFD

In this episode I'm joined by Bartosz Górecki and Wojciech Regulski, two of the founders of QuickerSim, a Warsaw-based company behind the MATLAB CFD toolbox of the same name.

We talk about their experiences as part of a startup accelerator — including a few tips for getting those all-important early sales.

The "plate-juggling act" that is, starting a company whilst still finishing up your PhD.

And perhaps most importantly of all in a CFD context – "why MATLAB?"

### Shownotes

• QuickerSim – CFD Toolbox for MATLAB – https://quickersim.com/

• QuickerSim Free Trial/Lite Version – https://quickersim.com/cfdtoolbox/download/

This episode is another departure from our regular interview shows. Today I'm joined by a panel of 5 guests who kindly shed some light on a few of the issues facing women in CFD.

Our expert panel includes Chris Wolfe, Althea de Souza, Aniko Rakai, Irena Juretić and Elisabeth McLean. Between them they cover a breadth and depth of experiences in CFD, whilst sharing an infectious desire to promote our industry as a great career choice for the next generation of female engineers.

We cover some ground, including:

- the scourge that is "mansplaining"

- the importance of women-in-tech groups/meetups/initiatives as a safe place to discuss issues & develop ideas

- whether women need to work harder & do a better job to get to the same place as a man?

- the role of imposter syndrome & self-esteem when it comes to a woman's career progression

- how will we know when we've "made it" in women in tech?

We barely scratched the surface here, but if you'd like to continue the conversation then hop over to our Facebook Group - talkingcfd.com/fb

Apologies that the audio isn't up to the usual standards, but recording 6 people live is still a tricky prospect. I'll try & do better next time out.

This is a talk I gave at last year's ESI OpenFOAM conference which focussed on the OpenFOAM-related guests that have been on the show & my key takeaways from talking to them. It also gives a bit of background to why & how the podcast came about in the first place.

The interviewees in question include Franjo Juretić (Creative Fields), Karim Fahssis (ZephyCloud), David Heiny (SimScale), Darrin Stephens & Chris Sideroff (Applied CCM) and Fred Mendonça (ESI OpenCFD).

If you're new here then it should be a nice overview of past interviews & a bit of a rewind for those of you who've been in the podcast family for a while

For the really committed, you can watch it with slides, over on YouTube – https://youtu.be/-UeABCmUBo0

Enjoy

Season 03 is go - back with 9 new interviews, at least one roundtable, a couple of bonus episodes & our newly-rebooted informal show, Talking CFD Social.

Loads of stuff to perk up your commute, yard work or anywhere else you might want some CFD in your earbuds.

Don't forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts & join the conversation happening in our Facebook Group at www.talkingcfd.com/fb

It’s the last episode of this season & we’ve covered some ground in those 10 episodes. Both in terms of the types of CFD we’ve featured & the countries we’ve touched. So I’m pleased to round out the season with a combination of the two.

I’m joined by Joana Bretz, founder of CINAR Brazil, a consultancy that uses specialist CFD to solve some pretty complex problems in the cement industry. Joana shares her insight into that world, including:

• why CINAR created a niche-specific software that they don’t really sell & how they use it to give themselves a huge advantage those competitors using generic CFD software;

• why it’s so important, as a consultant, to be solving expensive problems & how having domain expertise (& a clear niche) let’s you identify those problems;

• how she became a go-to expert in her field & the benefits that brings when it comes to attracting (& keeping) clients;

• the role of CFD expert user & why we don’t all need to be developers.

Shownotes

CINAR Brazil - http://www.cinarbrasil.com/

CINAR - http://cinar.co.uk/

Today we’re talking about an integral part of most CFD processes that often get’s ignored. It comes before we start our CFD process, yet often has a huge impact on that process — CAD.

I’m chatting with Mark Gammon, Technical Director of the Cambridge office of ITI & one of the team behind their software package CADfix (the clue is in the name). Mark has an in-depth knowledge of CAD that many of us CFD people don’t & he fills me in on:

• what makes CAD so tricky to work with in the first place & why solid modelling isn’t really;

• what on earth a medial object is & why it could be hugely important for CFD meshing;

• what sort of pre-meshing / CAD-cleanup jobs we’ll soon be able to automate & whether we’re about to lose the human from the CFD meshing loop;

• why going back-to-CAD is still such a tricky problem.

Shownotes

CADfix — http://www.iti-global.com/cadfix & https://twitter.com/CADfix

This is one of those end-of-season "different" episodes where we aren’t talking about the CFD business. We’re discussing NAFEMS, a not-for-profit organisation working to benefit simulation professionals worldwide.

I chat with Althea de Souza, long-time NAFEMS member, chair of the CFD working group & commissioning editor for their quarterly magazine, about:

• what NAFEMS do, who they do it for and most importantly - why we should care;

• NAFEMS' role in advocating for CFD & trying to ensure standards as CFD becomes more mainstream;

• their efforts at getting good simulation engineers acknowledged with their certification and competency tracking schemes.

If, like me, you don’t know much about NAFEMS - then it’s definitely worth a listen.

Shownotes

- NAFEMS - https://www.nafems.org/

- Benchmark Magazine - https://www.nafems.org/publications/benchmark/

In this episode, I’m talking with Sandip Jadhav, one of the founders CCTech - the team behind a host of CFD-related projects. We couldn’t do them all justice, so we focused on two of their more well-known projects, Simulation Hub (a cloud CFD platform with a difference) & LearnCAx (a free, online learning resource for CFD). We chat about:

• why they’re specifically targeting designers with Simulation Hub & why they chose to build “web services”, rather than a general purpose CFD platform;

• how they developed a “secret sauce” & how it’s become the foundation of many of their products;

• the role of artificial intelligence in helping to democratise CFD;

• the startup ecosystem in India & the increasing competition for CAE development talent.

Shownotes

http://www.cctech.co.in/ – the parent company behind all of these projects

https://www.learncax.com/ – Free online CFD training courses

https://www.simulationhub.com/ – Cloud CFD platform for designers

I managed to find another Robin to talk CFD with today. Robin Bornoff has been with Mentor Graphics (& Flomerics before that) for 20+ years, focussed on delivering “good science to engineers. We're talking all about democratisation & appification in CFD. We cover:

• why calling niche CFD tools “apps” might be doing them a disservice & whether CFD tools will become commodified;

• what the CFD industry has in common with the automotive industry, both in terms of it’s past & future;

• how embedding CFD in an MCAD environment helped drive democratisation & why embedded CAD is more than just a user interface problem;

Note, this episode was recorded before the announcement of Mentor Graphics’ acquisition by Siemens - we weren’t just ignoring it.

LINKS

Mentor Graphics (Mechanical Analysis Division) –https://www.mentor.com/products/mechanical/

Robin Bornoff's Blog – https://blogs.mentor.com/robinbornoff/

Social Profiles – https://twitter.com/FloRobin4CFD & https://www.linkedin.com/in/robin-bornoff-5639b014

I'm joined in this episode by Mark Seymour, one of the founding team behind Future Facilities, a CFD company focused on the data centre & electronics cooling sectors. In addition to the origins, focus and growth of the company, we get to talk about Mark's role as the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) & what that entails in a modern CFD company.

We discuss:

• how to position your CFD product or service based on the business benefits it delivers to a customer — as opposed to just another feature-rich R&D tool;

• why a CTO is more than just a senior engineer/developer & how the role changes as a company grows;

• how Future Facilities’ offering has evolved to deliver value to non-engineering groups (for example, facilities management & operational teams) & how that impacts the way they talk about their products;

• why he spends a large portion of his time working with sector-specific bodies/societies & what kinds of benefits they derive from that effort;

Links

Main Site – http://www.futurefacilities.com/

6SigmaDCX CFD Package – http://www.6sigmadcx.com/