How to push the boundaries of CFD modeling and the need to move towards democratization of numerical simulation

How is it possible to efficiently manage the growing complexity and number of regulations and certification procedures facing OEMs and suppliers across industries when they must have early confidence in the safe, clean, and productive performance of their new lightweight, electrified designs?

With this background, the 9th OpenFOAM¹ Conference took place earlier in October but before I start sharing with you the key takeaways from industry leaders, let me share a thought-provoking citation of two physicists: "When I meet the Lord, I would like to ask him two questions: why relativity? And why turbulence? I believe he will have an answer for the first." This well-known saying, credited to one of two physicists, Werner Heisenberg or Horace Lamb, is probably apocryphal, but it literally reflects the difficulties of understanding the convoluted behavior of turbulence in fluid flows. As Dr. Philippe Spalart, former Senior Technical Fellow at Boeing and NASA, presented during his keynote, turbulence is "that elephant in the room that everybody is trying to study". As if being able to see the full picture wasn't a big enough challenge already, "Nature doesn't ask your permission; she does not care about your wishes, and whether you like her laws or not, you are bound to accept her as she is, and consequently all her conclusions". [i] So, in a nutshell, no matter how many physical models we develop, nature doesn't care about mathematical equations and continues to keep us on our toes. Because of this conundrum, and the fact that we cannot change the characteristics of nature, the only option we have for better predictivity is to bring human experiences together and build out the technical foundation to eventually be able to see the entire room and what's behind the elephant standing in it.