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Pointwise Enables Accurate CFD for Nuclear Reactor Rod Bundles
Obtaining accurate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for nuclear reactor rod bundles can be extremely challenging due to the complex geometry of the rods and wrapped wires. Automatic unstructured meshing techniques do not provide enough control over the mesh for the wire-wrapped rod bundles. Multiple Pointwise meshing techniques were used to capture the complex geometry. A fully structured mesh was used near the boundaries, and a hex-dominant unstructured mesh was used away from the boundaries to enable an accurate CFD solution for a 19-rod nuclear reactor rod bundle with ANSYS CFX. Pointwise provides a great deal of control and different techniques that can be used to make high-quality meshes for extremely complex geometries.
Development of a CFD Wrapped Wire Rod Bundle Model in Sodium Flow
Watch a presentation showing how leveraging Pointwise meshing techniques enabled accurate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) results for nuclear reactor rod bundles at stringent convergence levels, which cannot be achieved with automatic "free" meshing alone.
Automated Meshing and Adaptive Re-meshing at Bombardier
Watch a webinar where Amine Ben Haj Ali from Bombardier explains the Meshing & Adaptive Re-meshing Server (MARS) which automatically generates meshes. This reduces meshing time and ensures consistent meshes across geometry variations no matter who is using it.
Converting Clouds of Points to a Boundary Representation
Watch a presentation given at the Pointwise User Group Meeting by Professor John Dannenhoffer of Syracuse University explaining his techniques for fitting a cloud of points with a smooth, watertight, B-spline based boundary representation. This technology has been incorporated into Pointwise to allow higher quality meshing on discrete geometry.
Accurate Performance Predictions for Marine Propellers
Engineers from two different companies teamed up to try to simulate a set of experiments using the Potsdam propeller. The mesh was completed using Pointwise and the simulation was done using TCFD. The results match well across a range of operating conditions.
Simulation of in-flight icing on UAVs
In-flight icing is a severe hazard to all aircraft and has been a point of concern for manned aviation for many years. UAVs are a new technology, and icing only recently has been addressed as a key limitation to UAV operations. Watch a webinar on how to use icing simulations on unmanned aerial vehicles to develop ice protection systems.
Topology Optimization with Pointwise and HELYX-Adjoint
Watch a presentation showing how Pointwise used in combination with HELYX-Adjoint automates design optimization, increases innovation, maximizes performance while reducing time and cost.
Pointwise Used in Topology Optimization of Automotive Components
Learn how Pointwise was used in combination with Helyx Adjoint to enable fully automated performance-driven design evolution and optimization of automotive components. Read the case study.
Solution-Based Mesh Adaptation with Pointwise and ANSYS CFX
Improve CFD simulation efficiency and accuracy using solution adapted meshing. Watch this recorded Let’s Talk Meshing Live Q&A session to learn how mesh adaptation can help make your CFD process more efficient and accurate.
CAD-Based Design Optimization of a Race Car Front Wing
In this webinar, Phoenix Integration and Pointwise demonstrate push-button design optimization for the front wing of a race car geometry. The tools and methodology used are highlighted and a design resulting in maximum downforce is identified.
How to Mesh a Frozen Drone
Icing is a severe hazard that significantly limits the usage of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) methods are a vital tool for understanding the effects of icing on UAVs. One of the most challenging tasks for the simulation is the generation of high-quality meshes of complex ice shapes. Find out how Pointwise met the challenge and decreased the mesh creation time with its automation.
CFD Simulation of Supercritical CO2 Power Cycles
A team of engineers at CRAFT Tech set out to model an experimental supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO2) compressor configuration. The engineers needed software that would resolve flow gradients with a minimum number of grid points and be flexible enough to provide the best grid for each region of the machine that they were modeling. They found both these solutions in Pointwise.
Simulation of Real-Fluid Thermodynamics for Application to Supercritical CO2 Power Cycles
Watch and download the presentation, “Simulation of Real-Fluid Thermodynamics for Application to Supercritical CO2 Power Cycles,” given by Jeremy Shipman, CRAFT Tech, about how Pointwise provided the high-quality meshes needed for high-resolution analyses of supercritical CO2 cycle machines.
Branch Technology’s Progress Utilizing Structured Grids Created with Pointwise
Watch a presentation about how using Pointwise for structured mesh generation enables Branch Technology to increase the reliability of their process while simultaneously decreasing the time to generate printer instructions. Learn how Pointwise reduces the time for generating 3D printed instructions from weeks to hours.
Pointwise Enables Revolutionary Building Construction
Branch Technology recognizes a problem with efficiency, cost, and effectiveness in building construction. They leverage inspiration from nature and large scale robotic additive manufacturing to revolutionize building construction and became the first company to 3D print large-scale structures. Using Pointwise for structured mesh generation enables Branch Technology to increase reliability of their process while simultaneously decreasing the time to generate printer instructions. Learn how Pointwise reduces the time for generating 3D printed instructions from weeks to hours.
Pointwise for Marine CFD Simulation Workshop
Download the presentations from the Pointwise for Marine Workshop to learn how to increase CFD simulation accuracy and efficiency with meshing flexibility. You will also see technical background information about the how and why of the meshing techniques developed and honed with many years of experience in Pointwise.
Pointwise for Automotive CFD Simulation Workshop
Download the presentations from the Pointwise for Automotive Workshop to learn how to increase automotive simulation accuracy and efficiency with meshing flexibility. You will also see technical background information about the how and why of the meshing techniques developed and honed with many years of experience in Pointwise.
Researchers use CFD to Help Quantify the Benefits of Truck Platooning Technologies
Find out how CFD is helping the commercial trucking industry develop platooning technologies for safer roads and increased fuel efficiency.
New Features in Pointwise V18.3
In this webinar, we demonstrate the marquee features in Pointwise V18.3. Explore the ability to use regular hexahedral cells to fill the space between the final T-Rex front and the farfield topology. This technique improves the accuracy of your CFD solution. Examine your mesh with a redesigned Examine command focused on ease of use.
Mesh Strategies for the FDA Benchmark Centrifugal Blood Pump
Learn how a hybrid-viscous mesh can improve solution efficiency. For many applications, structured meshes are preferred. However, if more efficient meshing techniques are possible and provide accurate solutions, exploration of those alternatives is imperative. In this webinar, we compare solutions obtained using a hybrid-viscous mesh with a multi-block structured mesh.
Hybrid Conformal Meshing for Wind Farm CFD Applications
Learn more about techniques that can be used to generate hybrid conformal meshes that span the entirety of a wind farm. In this webinar, we discuss how to efficiently move from the terrain scale of a wind farm to the wind turbine scale and how the process was automated to support the arbitrary placement of wind turbines for siting applications.
High-Order Curved Meshes for More Accurate CFD Solutions
Read about how Pointwise generates high-order curved meshes for high Reynolds number flows and how it helps you do more in less time with fewer resources while lowering program uncertainty and expense.
High Order Results from DoD HPCMP CREATE-AV TM Kestrel
Watch a presentation given at the Pointwise User Group Meeting explaining why high-order and adaptation are necessary for mesh convergence.
Using CFD to Help Increase the Safety of Driverless Cars
Autonomous vehicles are expected to become a viable form of transportation sometime in the first half of this century. One of the major hurdles will be to provide these cars with the artificial intelligence they need to position themselves in a location where there is less drag for optimal fuel efficiency, travel time, and stability. Ultimately, it should lead to fewer serious accidents and safer roads. Find out how Pointwise is helping researchers in the automotive industry do that.
Pointwise and the Evolution of Faster, Easier, More Reliable Automated Meshing
Generating high-quality automated meshes for CFD analysis has been an industry goal for more than 30 years. Meshing solution developers have spent much of those years trying to create user-independent solutions, only to be stymied by the inherent complexities of geometry models, the mesh, and the CFD solution. Pointwise researchers have made tremendous strides in this area lately by building on the work of others over the last three decades. As a result, they expect to release several new features very soon that will help make automated meshing a reality. Find out more about these latest advances.
Recent Developments in Pointwise Applied Research
Watch a presentation given at the Pointwise User Group Meeting about user-independent automated meshing and the latest meshing technologies under development at Pointwise.
Automatic Unstructured Mesh Generation with Geometry Attribution
Download the technical paper presented at AIAA SciTech 2019 that describes a process that automatically creates unstructured meshes from water-tight geometry input using Glyph scripting. Utilizing this process, one can reduce meshing time by up to 90 percent and manual input from hours to minutes.
Automatic Unstructured Mesh Generation with Geometry Attribution
Watch a presentation given at the Pointwise User Group Meeting about how Pointwise used custom Glyph scripts to automatically generate high-quality unstructured meshes for Engineering Sketch Pad (ESP) geometries, saving time and freeing users from repetitive and tedious tasks.
Automatic Generation of High-Quality Meshes using Pointwise and Glyph
Read a case study on how Glyph scripts integrated with Pointwise can reduce meshing time from up to 15 hours to one or two, and time spent on manual input from 12 hours to a few minutes. Automation also ensures a more consistent application of best practices for higher quality results.
Rapid Viscous CFD Mesh Generation on Propellers
Learn strategies to quickly construct a high-quality viscous mesh for a model aircraft propeller. These strategies can be used to accurately capture relevant blade geometry as well as efficiently resolve the surface curvature and boundary layer.
Hybrid Meshing Key to Improving CFD Simulation Efficiency
Read the case study, "Hybrid Meshing Key to Improving CFD Simulation Efficiency," which summarizes how a T-Rex hybrid grid showed up to a seven-fold improvement in solution efficiency compared to other approaches in predicting thrust and torque for a marine propeller.
High-Order Mesh Generation Using Pointwise
There are two primary challenges associated with the degree elevation of linear elements: boundary conformance and curving of high aspect ratio cells encountered within the boundary layer region. In this webinar, we address these challenges and show how to improve CFD solution accuracy by generating boundary conforming, high-order meshes.
Reducing Discretization Error with Mesh Adaptation
Learn how mesh adaptation can improve CFD solution accuracy. Mesh adaptation can automatically add finer mesh resolution in areas where it is needed by examining an error metric or flow gradients to determine where the existing mesh is not adequately resolving the flow.
Meshing Strategies for Propulsion Aerodynamics
Several meshing techniques and meshing best-practices have been developed while creating workshop-supplied meshes for the 3rd and 4th AIAA Propulsion Aerodynamics Workshops. These meshing strategies and lessons learned have been collected to help CFD practitioners gather experience meshing these types of challenging internal flow problems.
The Ultimate Guide to Writing Import and Export Plugins
One of the most frequent requests that Pointwise receives is to add native import and export capability for a grid file format. Unfortunately, there are not enough hours in the workday to fulfill all of these requests. For that reason, a plugin capability has been made available so you can easily write your own importer or exporter.
Meshing Automation and Adaptability in Pointwise V18.1
This webinar covering newly released features is your guide to the latest offerings in Pointwise. This quick overview demonstrates the new features so that you will know how to use and where to quickly find these features.
Meshing the Potsdam Propeller Test Case (PPTC) in Pointwise
The Potsdam Propeller Test Case (PPTC) is a benchmark case used for assessing the accuracy of existing computer codes and modeling strategies in simulating hydrodynamic propeller performance. The controllable pitch propeller design was tested at several different conditions and has a wealth of experimental data for CFD validation.
Pointwise delivers fast, accurate results for Garry Rogers Motorsport
Due to governing body rule changes, Garry Rogers Motorsport needed to design and build a completely new V8 Supercar without blowing their budget and schedule. By moving their CFD meshing to Pointwise, Garry Rogers Motorsport was able to significantly reduce their hours spent generating meshes while also having a great deal of confidence in the results.
The Influence of Meshing Strategies on Simulation Efficiency
Watch this on-demand webinar that will help you determine the best type of mesh to use for the fastest and most accurate CFD simulations.
Towards Mesh Adaptation with Pointwise
This webinar introduces a feature currently in development for mesh adaptation. It accepts from the flow solver a point cloud on which target cell sizes are specified. This point cloud is used as a clustering source in Pointwise to adapt both the volume and surface meshes.
Pointwise Aids Bid to Make World’s Fastest Bike
The Human Power Team is comprised of students with a shared goal: to build a highly advanced recumbent bicycle capable of breaking the world record for the fastest human alive. We will put our bike, the VeloX, to the test for the seventh time in the annual World Human Powered Speed Challenge in Battle Mountain, Nevada. This year the Human Power Team will focus purely on the world record for women, which was set at 121.81 km/h by Barbara Buatois in 2010.
Report from the 1st AIAA Geometry and Mesh Generation Workshop
The 1st AIAA Geometry and Mesh Generation Workshop was held in Denver, Colorado on 3-4 June 2017 prior to the AIAA Aviation Forum. The goals of this new workshop were threefold: to assess the current state-of-the-art in geometry preprocessing and mesh generation as applied to aircraft and spacecraft systems, to identify areas of needed improvement, and to develop a foundation for development of best practices. In particular, the NASA High Lift Common Research Model Wing-Body was meshed and the meshing process document by workshop participants.
Multi-block Structured Meshing of a Diffusing S-Duct
In this webcast, we use a diffusing serpentine inlet to demonstrate some of the more advanced structured meshing techniques available in Pointwise. These meshing strategies highlight how Pointwise users can generate uniform, boundary-layer resolved grids with exceptional cell shape quality where the inlet’s shape transitions from something with a square cross-section upstream to a circular shape at the exit.
Big Wave Surfboard Optimization Using Pointwise and CRUNCH CFD
When surfing 80-100 foot tall waves, a surfer can reach speeds as high as 50 mph. Optimization of the surfboard’s aerodynamics can contribute to stability and safety. A CFD framework featuring Pointwise’s automated meshing allowed 100 designs to be explored.
Big Wave Surfboard Optimization Using Pointwise and CRUNCH CFD
In this webinar, we will examine the tools and the framework that allowed over 100 surfboard designs to be explored, resulting in a higher speed, lower drag big wave surfboard design.
Glyph Scripting with Python in Pointwise
In this video, we demonstrate how to configure the Glyph Server in Pointwise and add support for scripting languages including Python. We will also introduce example Python scripts that highlight the utility and value of these new Glyph features.
Pointwise Aids in Aerospike Nozzle Analysis
Aerospike rocket nozzles offer increased efficiency over a wider operating pressure range than traditional nozzles. In this study, we compare CFD and experimental predictions of aerospike nozzle thrust for varying pressure ratios and base bleed rates.
Numerical Investigation of a Pick-and-Place Machine
Students at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden investigated the performance of a pick-and-place machine using CFD. Pointwise was used to perform a grid refinement study for a static simulation where the nozzle of the machine as well as the distance to the component varied. Additionally, an overset mesh was generated for a 1-DOF dynamic simulation.
Mesh Generation for the NASA HL-CRM
Pointwise is supporting two AIAA workshops (the 3rd High Lift Prediction and the 1st Geometry and Mesh Generation Workshop) to be held prior to AIAA Aviation in June 2017. We generated several type of meshes (unstructured, hybrid, hybrid overset, and high order) for the NASA High Lift Common Research Model that are described here.
Unstructured Quad & Hex Meshing Using Pointwise
Pointwise’s quad-dominant surface meshing and hexahedral boundary layer volume meshing generate smaller meshes in a highly automated manner. When combined with sources for off-body clustering, a fully-resolved viscous mesh can be generated relatively quickly.
Rotorcraft Hub Wake Analysis Using Overset Meshes
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University’s Applied Research Laboratory share an overview of their ongoing work involving overset grid CFD simulations of an incompressible rotorcraft hub they performed using the overset meshing tools available in Pointwise.
Mastering Geometry Cleanup Tasks in Pointwise
This video provides an overview of Pointwise’s suite of tools for creating a meshing-ready geometry model. Included are geometry model import, tolerance verification and setting, techniques for healing gaps between surfaces, recreating missing geometry, and more.
The Stanford Solar Car Project’s Race for Aerodynamic Efficiency
Chasing the Sun 3000 km across the Australian Outback is a challenge. And doing it in a solar powered vehicle is an even bigger challenge. But every two years the Stanford Solar Car Project, a student-run organization, arrives in Australia with a new design ready to take on the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. This article summarizes the simulation driven design framework that enabled the team to analyze over 40 design iterations and improve the aerodynamic efficiency of their 2015 car, Arctan.
Meshing Overview & S-Duct Results from the 3rd Propulsion Aerodynamics Workshop
Pointwise provided a set of standard grids for workshop participants to use at this year's 3rd Propulsion Aerodynamics Workshop in Salt Lake City, Utah. These grids were created using several new features available in Pointwise's upcoming V18 release. An overview of some of these features and the workshop grids is provided. Some initial steady-state results for the S-Duct using these grids and NASA's FUN3D solver are presented.
Localized Remeshing Strategies for Parametric Models in Pointwise
This video demonstrates the flexibility you will gain from Pointwise’s ability to limit remeshing to regions where geometry changes during your design cycle. Included are techniques for remeshing on geometry model import, merging adjacent meshes, and more.
Automating Geometry and Mesh Generation for Heat Exchangers
Maura Gallarotti, a master's student at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, used Pointwise Glyph scripting to quickly generate families of candidate heat exchanger designs and to perform parametric studies by changing the dimensions of several geometrical parameters to assess the effect of these parameters on cooling efficiency. With no experience using Pointwise and having never heard about Tcl/Tk or Glyph she was able to write a script to completely automate the grid generation process in less than a week.
The Stanford Solar Car Project's Race for Aerodynamic Efficiency
The Stanford Solar Car Project team developed a repeatable, simulation driven design framework consisting of Pointwise for rapid hybrid grid generation, SU2 to run the CFD simulations, and Tecplot 360 EX to post-process and interpret the results.
North America’s Largest 3-D Printed Structure Started as a Mesh
While the folks at Pointwise appreciate the beauty and utility of grids, usually the computational meshes produced by our software are used as an intermediate step in a customer’s engineering analysis process and not as the final goal of the project. However, Branch Technology, with its novel freeform 3-D printing techniques actually turns these meshes into physical structures that can be used as building elements or as seen here, works of art.
Revisiting Output-Based Mesh Adaptation
Mesh adaptation techniques in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) applications have matured substantially over the years, yet still few people seem to be leveraging them to their advantage. In this article, some background on why you should be using mesh adaptation to make sure important flow features are resolved without an inordinately large overall cell count is presented along with an example using Pointwise and NASA's FUN3D solver.
Meshing Considerations for Adjoint-based Mesh Adaptation
This video demonstrates best practices in Pointwise for adjoint-based, hybrid mesh adaptation using NASA Langley's FUN3D CFD solver to accurately compute the flow over an ONERA M6 wing.
Overset Grid Generation and CFD using Pointwise, Suggar++, and Caelus
This video demonstrates the process of generating overlapping grids, setting up and executing Suggar++, and exporting the domain connectivity information all from within Pointwise. We demonstrate an overset flow simulation using the Caelus CFD solver.
High Fidelity Overset Structured Mesh Generation for Marine Hydrokinetic Devices
Researchers at The Pennsylvania State University used the overset grid assembly tools in Pointwise to generate high-quality structured overset meshes for analysis of a horizontal axis water turbine. The flexibility offered by overset grids made it easy for them to add higher resolution grid blocks to resolve regions with high flow gradients like the turbine blade tips, wakes and tip vortices. This resulted in good agreement with experimental data even for flow details like the interaction between blade wakes and the support tower.
Meshing the 24th IMR Fender® Jazzmaster Guitar and the Abdominal Atlas
Last month several Pointwise engineers attended the 24th International Meshing Roundtable (IMR) held in Austin, Texas. We brought two grids generated for two benchmark geometries provided by the IMR steering committee. The grids were made by Carolyn Woeber, Travis Carrigan, and myself. We were pleased to hear that the grids were recognized both for their technical merit and striking visuals - they had won the Meshing Contest award.
Getting Started with Glyph Scripting
By watching this video, you will uncover the power of Pointwise’s Glyph scripting language. We will introduce the language’s syntax, share our best practices, and provide reference materials. The entire process will be demonstrated as we write a script.
Using T-Rex to Generate Unstructured Hexahedra for an Automotive Intake
Discover how to create unstructured hexahedra quickly on complex geometry using T-Rex (anisotropic tetrahedral extrusion). Best practices for the generation of both surface and volume meshes and troubleshooting techniques are shown.
Strategies for Multiblock Structured Meshing of Turbine Blades
Learn the skills and techniques to efficiently create multi-block structured grids for turbine blades from start to finish. This video includes discussions about which topologies work best and how to create them as well as how to avoid common problems.
Using Automated Meshing for Analysis in Conceptual Design
This webinar demonstrates how Pointwise's Glyph scripting can be used to automate generation of meshes suitable for high fidelity analysis such as CFD and FEA using as an example a generic transport aircraft modelled in OpenVSP.
University of South Florida Races with Pointwise
The University of South Florida's Formula SAE racing team, USF Racing, placed 6th overall out of more than 80 teams competing at the Formula SAE competition in Lincoln, Nebraska in June 2015. Using Pointwise helped the team to have a successful season. Pointwise's Glyph scripting allowed for multiple simulations providing good performance estimations for their vehicle's aerodynamic package.
Integrating OpenVSP and Pointwise for High-Fidelity CAE in Conceptual Design
Pointwise recently attended the OpenVSP Workshop 2015 hosted by NASA Langley and demonstrated Glyph scripting for automated viscous anisotropic meshing of a transport aircraft from OpenVSP. With recently added support in OpenVSP 3 for exporting models as STEP files, users now have an easy way to use an analytical geometry representation in Pointwise. The Glyph script automates the meshing process and provides a recipe for recommended meshing practices that new users can adopt when creating their own meshes in Pointwise.
High Order CFD Technologies
Hear about the development and industrialisation of HO CFD methods, gaining an appreciation of the current state of the art - as well as a view on the future capability. High-order CFD techniques are attracting considerable research interest, as they offer the potential for significantly more accurate fluid dynamics simulation - particularly in the age of many-core processors (such as GPUs).
Automotive Design Optimization using Pointwise, Sculptor, and OpenFOAM®
When coupled with a high-quality mesh generator, mesh morphing promises to allow rapid design space exploration by eliminating the need to remesh. Using the DrivAer geometry as an example, we use Pointwise, OpenFOAM, and Sculptor to simulate design variations.
Direct Numerical Simulation of Woodwind Aeroacoustics
Researchers at Toyohashi University of Technology in Japan have used detailed DNS calculations of the flow through a recorder to better understand its sound generation mechanisms and give guidance for future instrument designs.
Supersonic Jet in Crossflow Analysis with Pointwise and CFD++
Pointwise and CFD++ were used to analyze a jet in supersonic crossflow. Together they were able to provide appropriate modeling for accurate results on this relatively simple geometry with complex flow physics with shock waves and viscous effects.
Grid Extrusions & Boundary Conditions: What's New?
The latest Pointwise release has several new features. Among these are updates to extrusions and extrusion boundary conditions. The boundary conditions, in particular, are now more similar to NASA's HYPGEN code.
An Introduction to Pointwise Plugin Development
Your mesh and its boundary conditions can be exported to a file format of your design with a CAE Export Plugin. This webinar provides an overview of how to write your own plugin using Pointwise’s application programming interface (API).
Garry Rogers Motorsports Continues Racing Success with Pointwise
Garry Rogers Motorsport (GRM) team uses Pointwise to produce detailed, high fidelity CFD meshes for the design and improvement of their V8 supercars, which aided in last year's successful introduction of a new vehicle, the Volvo Polestar S60.
Land-Speed Record Attempt Uses High-Fidelity, High-Speed CFD
This webinar shows how TotalSim used structured, unstructured, and hybrid mesh techniques in Pointwise to reduce their overall cell count and improve grid quality. They also exploited Pointwise’s flexibility to manually adapt the grid.
Large Scale Aircraft Design Using SU2 and Pointwise
SU2 is an open-source collection of C++ and Python-based software for multi-physics, including computational fluid dynamics (CFD). This article discusses three design cases using SU2 with Pointwise: a transonic aircraft, a supersonic aircraft, and student-designed solar car.
Unstructured Mesh Generation for Simulation of Airfoil Ice Accretion
Researchers at Penn State University are using T-Rex anisotropic tetrahedral extrusion in Pointwise to make high-quality, boundary layer-resolved hybrid meshes for CFD analysis of a critical flight safety issue: ice build-up on aircraft structures.
Overset Tools and Other New Features in Pointwise V17.3
Join us as we demonstrate and discuss the new features available in Pointwise Version 17.3. You will learn about the new overset grid assembly tools and other new features like the Examine in Solve command. This webinar will demonstrate how you can make your meshing experience much more efficient using all the new tools in this latest release of the software.
Introduction to Scripting in Pointwise
In this video, we present a basic introduction to scripting in Pointwise and lay the framework for customization of the meshing process through scripts. Scripting in Pointwise is accomplished with Glyph, an extension of Tcl.
Turbine Blade Film Cooling Optimization with CFD
Pointwise and CFD Code Leo were used in a conjugate heat transfer analysis to optimize film cooling for the Air Force Research Lab High-Impact Technologies Research Turbine. The result is a more uniform temperature distribution over the turbine blades.
Meshing's Path Forward
Pointwise president John Chawner recently participated in a panel discussion on the future of mesh generation at the AIAA Science and Technology Forum 2015. Here is his summary of the topics covered and a glimpse of the meshing challenges we face.
Students Use Pointwise with Overset Grids for Aerodynamic Analysis
As part of their capstone senior project, engineering students at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology used Pointwise to assist in the detailed aerodynamic design of a highly-maneuverable, supersonic missile they designed.
Advanced Structured Grid Techniques
This video focuses on techniques for creating structured hexahedral grids with Pointwise. The relative merits of hexahedral versus tetrahedral elements on cell-centered finite volume simulations will be discussed, with special attention given to the sources and mitigation of numerical diffusion.
Fluid-Structure Interaction on Wind Turbine Rotor Blades
Researchers at RWTH Aachen University are studying fluid-structure interaction on wind turbine rotor blades to develop strategies to increase their life expectancy and reliability. They use Pointwise's T-Rex for control over the meshing process.
OpenVSP and Pointwise Work Together to Simplify CFD on New Vehicle Designs
OpenVSP is an open source, parametric modeler used to quickly capture design intent so geometry information is easily provided in the appropriate form for various uses, including CFD. Therefore, several approaches were explored by which OpenVSP and Pointwise could be integrated to automate the volume meshing process for CFD.
Glyph Scripting Automates Terrain Meshing for Wind Turbine Siting
Texas A&M University student Scott Evetts worked as a Pointwise intern this summer. He had no prior CFD or mesh generation experience, but he was able to accomplish a great deal in three months. Here he describes one of his Glyph scripting projects.
SU2-Pointwise Joint Workshop
OpenVSP is an open source, parametric modeler used to quickly capture design intent so geometry information is easily provided in the appropriate form for various uses, including CFD. Therefore, several approaches were explored by which OpenVSP and Pointwise could be integrated to automate the volume meshing process for CFD.
The State of Simulation: It's a Wonderful Time to be Using CFD
John Chawner, president of Pointwise, will discuss the current state of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) during an ENGINEERING.com webinar on 16 September.
Pointwise Meshes for Computation of Basic States in Boundary Layer Stability
Boundary layer transition from laminar to turbulent affects heat transfer, drag, and engine performance, but is still poorly understood. Researchers at Texas A&M are developing computational methods for predicting transition across all speed ranges.
Mesh Topology Influence on Volute Aerodynamic Performance Computed Using Code Leo
Three meshes (multi-block structured and unstructured with hexahedral and prismatic boundary layers) were generated for a generic volute and simulations were performed in the Code Leo CFD solver. Meshing time, solution time, and solution accuracy are compared.
Tips for Handling Complex Geometries, Very Large Grids
Using an aircraft landing gear as an example, this webinar illustrates techniques that simplify working with a complex geometry model and generating a mesh with viscous resolution suitable for a hybrid RANS/LES simulation.
Pointwise Boosts Garry Rogers Motorsport to Season Opening Win
Garry Rogers Motorsport is a racing partner with Volvo Car Australia. They used Pointwise and T-Rex meshing to help in the aerodynamic design of their new car for the 2014 season with excellent results in their simulations and on the track.
Unsteady Engine Analysis with Moving Mesh in OpenFOAM®
Researchers at Politecnico di Milano have used Pointwise and OpenFOAM® along with moving, non-conformal mesh interfaces to analyze internal combustion engine performance. Their results on two benchmark cases compare well with experimental data.
Introducing Unstructured Hexahedral Extrusion in Pointwise V17.2
See how Pointwise V17.2 will help you quickly generate unstructured hexahedral boundary layer meshes using T-Rex (anisotropic tetrahedral extrusion).
Simulation of Unsteady Propeller Blade Loads Using OpenFOAM®
Researchers at the University of Chalmers used Pointwise and OpenFOAM® to analyze unsteady propeller blade loads on ships that cause noise and vibration. Initial results are good and are being extended to include cavitation and pre-swirl stators.
Supersonic Aircraft Shape Design Powered by SU2 and Pointwise
This webinar details how Pointwise and SU2 can be used to tackle supersonic aircraft design. Watertight surface and volume meshes for complex geometries can be quickly generated in Pointwise and exported to the native SU2 format.
Co-Simulation for the Renewable Energy Sector
Many simulations within the field of renewable energy involve the coupling of different physics. An exemplary example is the analysis of a wind turbine. Here the structure (blades, tower, generator, gearbox, etc.) is interacting with the fluid.
Computational Optimization of Rocket Engine Nozzles
The primary aim of this project was to investigate the capability of using modern commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) packages (Pointwise and ANSYS Fluent®) as tools for analysis and design of rocket engine nozzles.
Structured Grid for an Aneurysm
Beginning with a faceted geometry model of an arterial aneurysm, this webinar demonstrates how to generate a multi-block structured grid with O-H topology quickly and with high quality.
Estimating the Power Requirement of a Rushton Turbine Using Pointwise and OpenFOAM®
Using a generic, baffled tank stirred by a Rushton turbine you will see how to use Pointwise to generate high-quality unstructured meshes suitable for steady-state moving reference frame calculations in OpenFOAM.
How We Meshed the IMR Brains and Beauty Contest Geometry
A few weeks ago several Pointwise engineers attended the 22nd International Meshing Roundtable (IMR). They brought with them a grid Carolyn Woeber and I generated for a benchmark geometry provided by the IMR steering committee.
Pointwise Helps UTA Racing Push Aerodynamic Envelope
University of Texas at Arlington's (UTA) racing partnership with Pointwise during the past three years has resulted in an influx of aggressive aerodynamic development for the UTA Formula SAE race cars. The grid generation software has been crucial in several developments that have resulted in significant improvements to the wing packages on the cars.
Learn About the Newest Capabilities in Pointwise
Pointwise V17.1 R4 introduced several new capabilities. In this webinar, we will demonstrate features such as the CAE solver additions, the capability to easily delete multiple control points at once from a connector, a new block elliptic solver boundary condition, and many more.
CFD Investigation of LBE Rod Bundle Flow
LBE is a eutectic mixture consisting of 45 percent lead and 55 percent bismuth. It is foreseen as a possible coolant for Generation IV nuclear reactor systems. The most interesting properties of LBE in comparison with lead and water are presented in Table 1.
CFD Analysis of Cavitation and Acoustics of a High Energy Water Injection Pump
Pointwise can easily manage and organize complex assemblies so you can focus on meshing a single component at a time. This allows engineers to rapidly generate high quality hybrid grids while maintaining the connectivity between adjacent components.
Gas Turbine Combustor Mixing at Cranfield
Natural gas accounts for more than 23 percent of the world's energy production. Although it is not used in airplane engines because of its large storage volume, it has become widespread in industrial gas turbines and is the fuel of choice for many to plug the “energy gap” within the United Kingdom.
Multi-Module Centrifugal Pump Grid Using Pointwise's Unstructured Mesh Features
Combustion Research and Flow Technology (CRAFT Tech) has been using CRUNCH CFD® and Pointwise to design and evaluate pump systems for our customers. Pointwise has proven to be a robust and powerful tool for generating high-quality unstructured meshes.
Emirates Team New Zealand Uses Pointwise for AC72 Hydrodynamics Design
The 34th America's Cup will be contested this fall in San Francisco Bay in high-speed, high-tech, hydrofoiling catamarans hitting speeds upwards of 40 kts (more than 46 miles per hour). These new AC72 class catamarans are 72 feet long (22 m), 46 feet wide (14 m) with a wing mast towering 131 feet (40 m) above the water.
Texas A&M Uses Pointwise Meshes for Boundary Layer Stability Analysis
Researchers at Texas A&M University are studying boundary layer stability to gain insight into how transitions from laminar to turbulent flow occur. Their research has applications from low-speed flows in which the laminar-turbulent transition location affects drag and flow separation characteristics to hypersonic flows in which the difference between low laminar and much higher turbulent heating rates can determine whether a space vehicle will successfully pass through the atmosphere or burn up on reentry.
Mesh Manipulation for Moving Surfaces
Many aerospace-related applications exist that require surfaces to move within a given region. This can include bodies moving relative to each other, as happens during a store separation, or surfaces actually changing shape, which is what happens with ablation and aeroelasticity.
Pointwise Gives GRM a Time-Savings Edge in V8 Supercar Design
Garry Rogers Motorsport (GRM) is one of the most enduring racing teams in Australian motorsport and this year we are celebrating 50 years of racing involvement. The team competes in the hotly contested V8 Supercar championship, which is regarded as one of the finest touring car racing categories in the world.
Syracuse University Gets CFD Work Spinning
At Syracuse University, a mixed group of both graduate and undergraduate students had the opportunity to participate in a project involving an innovative new wing design. Overseen by Prof. Thong Dang, the team sought to analyze this new design to determine its practicality and effectiveness.
What's New in Pointwise V17.1
Learn about the features added in Pointwise Version 17.1. From new CAE solver functionality to an advancing front algorithm for unstructured surface meshes, Pointwise V17.1's capabilities help you generate the mesh you need.
CATS Probes Properties of Fluid-Particle Interaction with Pointwise
At the Chair for Computational Analysis for Technical Systems (CATS) at the RWTH Aachen University, a part of the group is working within the Priority Program 1273 “Colloidal Process Engineering” of the German Research Foundation (DFG).
Mesh Generation for Airframe Noise Computations
As a company, one of Pointwise's goals is to be a good advocate of the meshing and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) communities. Being an advocate means participating in technical conferences and workshops and with other community members in a non-partisan way.
Attempting to Break the Land Speed Record with the Help of CFD
This webinar will discuss how the North American Eagle land speed record team used Pointwise and CFD++ to help design aft suspension fairings to reduce overall drag on the car while maintaining stability and control.
Drag Effects of Heating and Cooling Cylinders in Crossflow
The reduction of the drag force on all types and shapes of objects has historically been, and remains, a major focus of aerodynamicists and fluid mechanics researchers everywhere. Aircraft, automobiles, rockets, boats, and a multitude of other devices and components suffer from the ill effects of viscous and form drag.
Structured Meshing for Low-Speed Ship Maneuvering Simulations
In this webinar, we will demonstrate how to create a structured mesh suitable for low Froude number ship resistance predictions on the U.S. Navy Surface Combatant DTMB 5415 ship hull using hyperbolic extrusion and elliptic smoothing.
From CAD to CFD in Five Minutes
Customers have written many articles about how they apply Pointwise for their real applications. We have written many articles describing benefits about the features in Pointwise. However, these articles rarely describe the full meshing process in any detail.
Getting Started with Pointwise
If you have not used Pointwise before, this webinar will familiarize you with Pointwise's meshing terminology, the user interface, and the general meshing process. We will even point you to where you can get more information and training materials.
How T-Rex Unstructured Meshing Aids Transonic Aircraft Drag Reduction
Learn how Pointwise's anisotropic tetrahedral extrusion method (T-Rex) automates creating unstructured viscous meshes on complex geometries in a way that reduces the effort required to accurately predict drag.
Unstructured Viscous Boundary Layer Meshing: T-Rex
For the complex geometries encountered in modern analyses, creating boundary layer resolved meshes can be tedious and error prone. Pointwise's anisotropic tetrahedral extrusion method, T-Rex, is a robust and highly automated method for creating unstructured boundary layer meshes on complex geometries.
Hybrid Meshing for a Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine
This video walks you through the generation of a hybrid mesh for a horizontal axis wind turbine.
High-fidelity, High-productivity CFD Simulations of Airflow over a Golf Club Head
The simulation of airflow over a golf club shows the CFD process from geometry creation through solution post-processing for two hybrid meshes: one made exclusively in Pointwise and one combining Pointwise with mesh generation tools developed at UTC SimCenter.
Automating Viscous Meshing for a Transonic Aircraft Model Using Glyph Scripting
This webinar demonstrates appropriate meshing strategies while automating the grid generation process using Glyph scripting on the NASA Common Research Model from the 4th AIAA Drag Prediction Workshop.
Multiblock Structured Meshing for a High Stagger Angle Rotor: Part 2
This two-part video is aimed at providing guidance in creating a CFD ready viscous multiblock structured mesh for a single passage of a high stagger angle axial rotor geometry.
Multiblock Structured Meshing for a High Stagger Angle Rotor: Part 1
This two-part video is aimed at providing guidance in creating a CFD ready viscous multiblock structured mesh for a single passage of a high stagger angle axial rotor geometry.
Dealing With Dirty Geometry - Fault Tolerant Meshing
Pointwise's fault tolerant meshing heals the mesh over gaps and overlaps in the CAD geometry so you can proceed without having to get bogged down in CAD repair.
Viscous Meshing: Prism Extrusion
Extrusion of prism layers can be performed using a traditional algebraic technique in Pointwise as shown in this video.
Structured Meshing
Pointwise's structured grid techniques generate high quality quad and hex grids as in this example for an axial rotor blade.
CAE Preprocessing
Once your mesh is complete, you can use Pointwise to customize it for your flow solver including boundary and volume conditions.
How to Master Hybrid Meshing for Wind Turbines
During this webinar, you will learn how to save time creating CFD meshes on the Sandia National Lab CX100 horizontal axis wind turbine using a combination of Pointwise’s structured and unstructured mesh techniques.
Parametric Optimization for Vertical Axis Wind Turbines Using Independent CFD Tools
In this webinar we will illustrate an automated methodology that can be applied to optimizing blade design with independent CFD tools.
Working with Dirty CAD While Meshing a Naval Ship Hull
Pointwise reduces the time needed for mesh completion with its flexible techniques for dealing with dirty geometry. In this 45 minute webinar, you will learn how to deal with and clean up the geometry on the U.S. Navy Surface Combatant DTMB 5415 ship hull.
Quick High-Quality Structured Meshing for Axial Pumps
Pointwise reduces the time needed for high-fidelity CFD simulation of turbomachinery. In this webinar, we demonstrate the techniques used to create a multiple-block, structured mesh for the DARPA HIREP Axial Pump.
Meshing Forensics II: Overcoming Common Structured Gridding Pitfalls
The topology requirements of structured grids present many challenges that have to be overcome. We describe the more common challenges, how to avoid them, and how to resolve them when they arise.
Meshing Forensics: How to Recover When Things Go Wrong
Meshing presents a myriad of challenges from geometry modeling through mesh export to the flow solver. This webinar shares essential tips for avoiding and resolving common problems.
Students' Experience with Pointwise in WVU Introduction to CFD Course
After just a few hands-on tutorial sessions, engineering seniors and graduate students at West Virginia University (WVU) were able to generate a variety of grids using Pointwise, learning how mesh topology, dimensionality, and resolution affect solution accuracy for a variety of internal and external flow problems.
Enlisting CFD in the Fight Against Ballast-Water Borne Organisms
The world's fleet of approximately 45,000 cargo ships transports around 8,000 million tons of cargo per year. What is, perhaps, somewhat less known is that these ships also transport some unwanted hitch-hikers in the form of organisms that get scooped up when ballast water is taken on.
Pointwise Used for Structured Mesh in Submarine Sail Design
Under its Corporate Enabling Research Program (CERP) initiative for future undersea warfare, the Australian Defence Science & Technology Organisation (DSTO) is investigating submarine concept designs.
Pointwise Aids Flight Experiment, Ground-Based Research for SCRAMSPACE International Access-to-Space Project
Safe, economical and ecologically responsible access to space is a major challenge for all nations due to the dependence of the global economy on assured and secure access to space-based services. The most promising way to meet this challenge is to extend aeronautical technology to hypersonic vehicles powered, at least partially, by air breathing supersonic combustion ramjet engines (scramjets).
Meshing Centrifugal Stages for CFD and FEA Is Easy with Pointwise
Cameron's Compression Systems in Buffalo, NY, is a leading worldwide provider of integrally geared centrifugal compressors. The company, which has been in the business for more than 50 years, designs and manufactures highly customized centrifugal compressors for air separation and process gas businesses worldwide.
Pointwise Works to Make Aircraft Quieter
The goal of NASA's Quiet Aircraft Technology (QAT) program is to reduce perceived aircraft noise by 50 percent in 10 years and by 75 percent in 25 years, using 1997 levels as the baseline.
Diverse Uses of Pointwise at Embry-Riddle
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) participated in the Pointwise Teaching Partnership during the 2010-11 academic year. As a part of the course ME 409, Vehicle Aerodynamics, students are taught to utilize Pointwise to create multi-element unstructured grids in order to complete CFD projects.
Weir American Hydro Comes Up to Speed Quickly
Weir American Hydro is a leading supplier and installer of hydroturbines and pumps for hydroelectric power generation. They have a particular strength in improving the efficiency of existing power stations.
Meshing is Vital to Formula SAE at UTA
Over the past year, use of Pointwise for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) mesh generation has helped increase productivity drastically on the Formula SAE team at the University of Texas at Arlington.
Pointwise Aids Hypersonic CFD at the University of Queensland
The University of Queensland participates in the Pointwise Teaching Partnership program. During 2010, Pointwise was used for our undergraduate thesis courses and a senior elective course in hypersonics and rarefied gas dynamics.
T-Rex Hybrid Meshing in Pointwise
3D anisotropic tetrahedral extrusion (otherwise known as T-Rex) will be released soon, but the 2D surface mesh formulation of T-Rex already is available for you to use in Pointwise V16.04.
Modeling Shipping Container Velocity during Tsunami Conditions
The risk that tsunamis pose to coastal structures is not just from the wave impact, but also from the impact of debris that is carried by the fluid flow. Shipping containers are ubiquitous in coastal locations and represent a realistic debris object.
Coupling CFD and Thermal Analyses with Pointwise
Engineers from W.R. Davis Limited and Pointwise, Inc. collaborated on a project to couple the ShipIR thermal analysis software with ANSYS Fluent® computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software for more accurate prediction of infrared signatures of naval vessels.
Automating Porous Flow Meshing with Glyph
At Oregon State University, researchers in the Computational Flow Physics Lab (CFPL) are using large scale, high resolution simulations to better understand flow through complex porous media.
Wind Turbine Micro-Siting Analysis at Vestas Wind Systems
As a leader in wind energy, Vestas Wind Systems A/S, has installed over 41,000 turbines in 65 countries across five continents, and they continue to install wind turbines worldwide at the rate of one every four hours.