CFD analysis of Lightning McQueen

[Pierce89]

CFD will not necessarily show any of the things you just mentioned if it isn't being done correctly. And with a black box program, you have no way of knowing if it was done correctly.

Back in the above sample, what if it told you the area of the circle was -6.5?

If you've literally no idea what's high pressure and low pressure, and you run CFD with incorrect mesh/boundary conditions/any of a billion things that you could input incorrectly... you still have no idea what's high pressure and low pressure. If you don't know what the program is doing, you're error bounds are practically infinite. to know the pressure coefficient at some point is -1 plus or minus infinite isn't helpful.

I don't think you realize just how badly CFD can go wrong.

While I agree with everything you said, I've never once seen a cfd analysis performed by someone over 21 that was as bad as you make it sound. Now, I have seen some awful cfd, but not THAT bad .

[Jersey Tom]

I dunno. I've seen some pretty atrocious FEM even of "solid" pieces with relatively straightforward geometry where end answers were nonsense. (FEM done by engineering undergrads) Wouldn't be surprised if the same pitfalls were just as easy to fall into with CFD.