CFD Simulations: Matlab Usage / Coding / Applications ...

Over time, there has been increasing discussions on whether or not other commercial softwares be used to program CFD and post process calculations...for example: use of Matlab (Matlab: A Practical Introduction to Programming and Problem Solving). In this blog, I will try to post links and articles - which uses matlab for CFD (/ general numerical) calculations.

Website maintained in the mech and material science dept., oregon

http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~gerry/class/ME448/codes/

has some nice listing of matlab codes for 1D, 2D finite volume based calculations !! A nice start for beginners and others who look to use Matlab for their scientific needs.

Discussions in the good groups on whether or not Matlab could be used in the CFD world was interesting:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.soft-sys.matlab/browse_thread/thread/09dae3365cd4fa39

How about some nice shallow water modeling (CFD) using matlab: The file is available for download from the matlab central server

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/17716

I found a paper on

1. CFD graphical interface using Matlab: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.90.3658&rep=rep1&type=pdf

2. 2D Airfoil optimization using CFD (matlab based) : http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.108.854&rep=rep1&type=pdf

3. Thesis work: CFD program to model pressure distribution of melt flow using Matlab

http://www.me.umn.edu/~td/Lewandowski-Thesis.pdf

4. Discussions on SIMPLE algorithm in Matlab

http://www.mathworks.de/matlabcentral/newsreader/view_thread/246199


In the pre-processing segment, the use of matlab has been extensive as well:

1. DistMesh: a simple mesh generator using matlab can be found here (http://www-math.mit.edu/~persson/mesh/) . Nice application for unstructured triangular and tetrahedral meshes.

2. Gridgen: a matlab based orthogonal grid generator to construct orthogonal curvilinear grids is available here.

http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/operations/modeling/gridgen/

The gridgen site has tutorials and details for download and installation.

3. The cornell based QMG package does finite element mesh generation in two and three dimensions

http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/vavasis/qmg-home.html

For some fundamental functions usage and programming for coding the entire CFD structure or in parts (pre / post processing) these books may be helpful.

1. MATLAB Programming for Engineers
2. An Introduction to Programming and Numerical Methods in MATLAB
3. Engineering Analysis: Interactive Methods and Programs with FORTRAN, QuickBASIC, MATLAB, and Mathematica