- #1
Saladsamurai
- 3,020
- 7
Hello all!
After graduating with my BS and MS in mechanical engineering, I have come to the conclusion that I want to start a career in CFD. I used CFD on a co-op that I worked for a while and have always been drawn to and excelled in fluid dynamics related courses. I am currently on the job search trying to get an 'in' at a company doing/learning (mostly learning ) CFD. However, in the meantime, I feel like I need to get a headstart on the learning process. Experience is always a plus, so I want to start developing the right kind of experience. So in my free time have been doing some reviewing of the fundamentals of Fluid Dynamics. But I also want some input on what else I can be doing. Something more along the lines of the types of things that an employer would see as useful.
My plan is as follows, but I am open to suggestions, corrections, and the like.
1) Review, review, review. I am talking about the fundamental physics, thermodynamics and maths. This part of my plan is going pretty well. In addition to my fluids and thermo, I have been reviewing/learning linear algebra and PDE's.
2) Write my own small (small is relative term here) CFD codes to solve some problems. I have never taken a formal CFD class, but I am teaching myself so that I can learn things like problem formulation and well-posed-ness of said problems. I am currently using Anderson's CFD: The Basics with Applications because it is very accessible, but I think there are more modern books that I should look into.
3) I think this might be the most important from an employer's perspective: Get some more hands-on experience using CFD software. The problem with this is the cost associated with the software. FLUENT and the like are pretty much out of the question. I was looking into OpenFOAM and was wondering if this would be a good one to start with? Will the things I learn carry over to more commercialized packages? I have a feeling the answer is yes since the problem solving approach should be the same, just the interfaces being different.
Thanks for reading and any additional insights those of you with CFD experience might have I would be grateful to hear about.
After graduating with my BS and MS in mechanical engineering, I have come to the conclusion that I want to start a career in CFD. I used CFD on a co-op that I worked for a while and have always been drawn to and excelled in fluid dynamics related courses. I am currently on the job search trying to get an 'in' at a company doing/learning (mostly learning ) CFD. However, in the meantime, I feel like I need to get a headstart on the learning process. Experience is always a plus, so I want to start developing the right kind of experience. So in my free time have been doing some reviewing of the fundamentals of Fluid Dynamics. But I also want some input on what else I can be doing. Something more along the lines of the types of things that an employer would see as useful.
My plan is as follows, but I am open to suggestions, corrections, and the like.
1) Review, review, review. I am talking about the fundamental physics, thermodynamics and maths. This part of my plan is going pretty well. In addition to my fluids and thermo, I have been reviewing/learning linear algebra and PDE's.
2) Write my own small (small is relative term here) CFD codes to solve some problems. I have never taken a formal CFD class, but I am teaching myself so that I can learn things like problem formulation and well-posed-ness of said problems. I am currently using Anderson's CFD: The Basics with Applications because it is very accessible, but I think there are more modern books that I should look into.
Any suggestions on 1) texts and 2) some common CFD problems that I could program solutions to? I have access/experience to/with C++, FORTRAN, and MATLAB
3) I think this might be the most important from an employer's perspective: Get some more hands-on experience using CFD software. The problem with this is the cost associated with the software. FLUENT and the like are pretty much out of the question. I was looking into OpenFOAM and was wondering if this would be a good one to start with? Will the things I learn carry over to more commercialized packages? I have a feeling the answer is yes since the problem solving approach should be the same, just the interfaces being different.
Thanks for reading and any additional insights those of you with CFD experience might have I would be grateful to hear about.