High-performance computing in computational fluid dynamics: progress and challenges

Abstract

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is by far the largest user of high-performance computing (HPC) in engineering. The main scientific challenge is the need to gain a greater understanding of turbulence and its consequences for the transfer of momentum, heat and mass in engineering applications, including aerodynamics, industrial flows and combustion systems. Availability of HPC has led to significant advances in direct numerical simulation (DNS) of turbulence and turbulent combustion, and has encouraged the development of large-eddy simulation (LES) for engineering flows. The statistical data generated by DNS have provided valuable insight into the physics of many turbulent flows and have led to rapid improvements in turbulence and combustion modelling for industry. Nevertheless, major challenges remain and the computational requirements for turbulence research, driven by well-established physical scaling laws, are likely to remain at the limit of the available HPC provision for some time to come.