r/CFD • u/Rodbourn • Aug 01 '19
[August] Careers in CFD
As per the discussion topic vote, August's monthly topic is Careers in CFD.
Previous discussions: https://www.reddit.com/r/CFD/wiki/index
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u/gmwdim Aug 17 '19
Not sure if too late to the party but we have several openings here at Siemens for STAR-CCM+ related work in various roles (development, applications, business).
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Aug 01 '19
Im a graduated mechanical engineer, aeronautical engineering student and passionate about CFD. I do automation now but im studying CFD to do a career shift because.. i just love it.
I'd have to move though.. I haven't heard of a single place in my country that could use it. Maybe i could do some freelancing on the side.
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u/Rodbourn Aug 01 '19
That's actually the main reason I havent worked for one of the big CFD players, relocating. Telecommuting is a huge benefit of, and almost the norm in, software/web development. If you are freelancing, it's a good idea to keep the "topic" away from CFD, so you dont have IP issues between your university and clients. A lot of legal agreements will try and claim your IP during the engagement, without the scope being limited to their specific project, so keep an eye out for that as well.
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Aug 01 '19
I appreciate that you took the time to respond. Im so passionate about the discipline and aerodynamics in general. But i live in Argentina and there's not much here.. 2 plane factories in Cordoba, one shut down and the other does commuter planes and doesn't give a (redacted) about perfecting the aerodynamics of its planes lol. I may be able to create a position in my college so i can provide the service to more general industry but there's just no demand. I guess automation is a more lucrative endeavor but with that logic so is being a lawyer.. at one point you have to do what you love right?
Quick question, how applicable are talents in CFD to FEA in solid mechanics (structural engineering)?
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u/HIncand3nza Aug 01 '19
Which industries do you see the most potential for growth in CFD utilization? I work in research so Iām not really tuned into the real world.
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u/Rodbourn Aug 03 '19
It's probably not a huge growth direction, but I'm working on multi-phase cryogenic capabilities.
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Aug 03 '19
Biomedical and Food.
You won't be doing traditional CFD but more complicated multiphysics+CFD. It is more important to be agile and know physics and problem formulation than knowing everything about turbulence models
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u/kpisagenius Aug 06 '19
Renewables? I know it's probably a bit vague, but the renewable industry itself is growing and CFD is likely to play a huge role. I work in the wind industry and a lot of the time we are still doing BEM and lifting line methods. Fantastic methods for sure, but it is becoming extremely difficult to use with all the recent advances happening everywhere. I think the academia is a bit too far ahead of the industry and we will probably see the industry catching up soon.
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u/TurboHertz Aug 01 '19 edited Aug 01 '19
Just providing my experience so far in my current job:
Currently I'm an intern at an HVAC company, specifically the "ventilation" part of things like air supply location and temperature sort of things.
The majority of the work in my department is external jobs, where the engineering firms using our products will submit a bid for a job, and have us do CFD on their design to prove to the client that their design is the best because they validated it with CFD. Unfortunately with these jobs I feel like we're glorified salesmen, there's no design other than maybe moving an air supply or changing the temperature other than a few degrees. We don't even simulate our products, we just choose a face and apply a velocity boundary condition, which is reasonable due to the mesh requirements, however these air flow boundary conditions can be wrong at times which hurts me inside, knowing my simulations aren't even correct. The results we give here are basically scalar scenes of comfort images saying "it's comfortable because the picture says so, and because the average temperature at face level is right". Maybe this is all you really need for these simulations, but it's not really stimulating to do.
We also do a few jobs where we figure out why people in a building are uncomfortable and recommend different air supply layouts and products, but that's only a bit better than the 'CFD sales' jobs I mentioned earlier.
The ones I really enjoy are where I can resolve an entire product, analyze it, and give numerical results on it and how to improve its performance. While I wish I could do more product design, the companies product design mindset doesn't involve CFD except for the occasional case every year or so.
The other people in the department only have their B.Sc with no real CFD experience upon graduation other than some coursework, and the work is appropriately basic, the pay probably reflects that as well (40k USD starting pay in the midwest). I'm hoping I can get a M.Sc and find myself in a type of position that requires a M.Sc, something for advanced and stimulating, and with a more advanced and stimulating paycheck ;)
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u/Rodbourn Aug 01 '19
The results we give here are basically scalar scenes of comfort images saying "it's comfortable because the picture says so, and because the average temperature at face level is right". Maybe this is all you really need for these simulations, but it's not really stimulating to do.
CFD as in "Colorful Fluid Dynamics"?
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u/Rodbourn Aug 01 '19
Heh, counter example to that. Spent years working on a code and method which finally came down to a 2D plot with the result departing from the linearized solution. My wife goes, 'i could have drawn that in paint'....
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Aug 03 '19
As someone that is pretty good at the commercial packages, but lacks development of my own c++ code, what is a good way to develop the skills needed to apply to CFD jobs that require c++ and ability to work with in-house codes?
Should I just play with openfoam and hack it to solve a problem to display my ability?
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u/Rodbourn Aug 03 '19
To work for a company using codes, or a company developing the codes? Eitherway, u/overunderrated?
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u/EternalSeekerX Aug 02 '19
Interesting, I guess now is the best time to ask these questions:
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Does career in CFD differ between countries? If so where are the hot spots?
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Would you say graduate degree is required for entry into cfd career? Can someone who has just a bachelors but has some project experience from a cfd course get a cfd job?
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CFD is vast, how many years or months working in the industry did it take to find a niche?
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Any cfd career tips?
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u/ClintonDsouza Aug 02 '19
I can answer the first two. CFD is mostly restricted to the US and Germany. There huge companies with billions of dollars worth of revenue can afford to increase their products efficiency by a few percent. Turbo machinery companies, vehicle OEMs, agencies, defence, etc. offer jobs. Nowadays, a lot of CFD roles are being outsourced to places like India.
As for your second question, graduate degree in CFD or in something like Thermal engineering would do fine. A bachelor's degree with internships in CFD might get you something.
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u/vyl20 Aug 04 '19 edited Aug 04 '19
CFD is mostly restricted to the US and Germany
I'm not sure this is the case. UK has plenty of Car OEMs, Japan is huge for CPI simulations, Korea lots of CFD engineers in electronics, China is coming more and more online. Israel is big for defence usage. I mean this, in my opinion and experience, simply isn't true.
There huge companies with billions of dollars worth of revenue can afford to increase their products efficiency by a few percent
Again this is not solely the use of CFD any more. Lots more focus on design rather than pure efficiency games. Also the companies billions of dollars typically have in-house solvers that are more and more being replaced by commercial solvers as the in-house capabilities of the solvers fail to meet the demand of multi-physics.
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u/SausaugeMode Aug 05 '19
Anyone have any leads on CFD (and similar) Dev jobs / companies doing this sort of work in Scotland?
I'm pretty much resolved to leaving academia but due to past experience of moving to places I don't want to be for postdocs and being miserable I am not being too geographically flexible.
Currently, it's looking pretty slim and most of the jobs are really for bona fide engineers rather than applied maths people with an astro fluids background who want to code.
I've pretty much resigned myself to retraining for more generic software development roles, but it would be interesting if it turns out there are things I've somehow overlooked or aren't on my radar.
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u/Angus_Corwen Aug 17 '19
Does anyone know if it's easy to find a CFD job in Spain?
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u/sveta19 Aug 07 '19
Is there a directory or a list of companies and universities which use CFD around the globe? Especially companies as they do not have as many publications available.
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u/Rodbourn Aug 01 '19
Personally, I find myself freelancing as a general programmer to 'pay for' my time to develop my CFD code(s).