Parallel and Meshfree: new frontiers of CFD

For the best part of 50 years, advances in algorithms and the increasing computing power have made computational fluid dynamics, CFD, a mature discipline. Which are some remaining frontiers of the discipline? It is common knowledge that one of the challenges in fluid simulation continues to be the need to straddle many scales. New computational methods still need to be developed that are able to adapt to the many scales of a problem. Another frontier recently opened is the development of hardware-aware software. Multi-core computers are on everyone’s desktops nowadays, and a growing trend in using graphics cards and other specialized hardware is buzzing. In all of these frontiers, there is great potential for meshfree methods. Particle-type formulations for CFD offer an alternative which is low in numerical diffusion, devoid of numerical dispersion and stability constraints. Also, meshfree methods offer a natural adaptivity in situations where mesh generation is a huge burden (e.g. moving boundaries). Meshfree methods could be especially well-suited to exploit the new hardware technologies entering the scene. I will present an overview of some aspects of meshfree simulation in fluid dynamics, and recent progress in algorithms and parallel implementations, including novel hardware.