CFD: What it means to me

It was a rainy day outside. I was sat in my class. It was another usual day during my time in Mechanical Engineering. There were two lectures remaining for the day, and suddenly, we got called into an auditorium because a professor from Malaysia was visiting our college. He introduced himself and gave a presentation about the disappearance of flight MH370. I don’t remember the specifics, but he showed us a video about how the flight might have crashed through simulations, and that was madly impressive. When I left the auditorium, I carried three words with me: Computational Fluid Dynamics.

At first, the sheer length of this subject overwhelmed me. But I slowly concluded that it was just Physics with Maths on overdrive. I began underestimating the subject and during my final year, I got together with three of my mates to do a project in CFD. It was during this time that I actually sat down with proper textbooks and the famous software - ANSYS Fluent Student version. Somewhere down the line, I discovered an open-source CFD software called OpenFOAM. I put together a mesh (yes, without following any of the meshing criteria) on a CAD model of an F1 front wing and tried simulating it. The next thing I saw: SIGSEGV error. Fifteen lines of error filled with terms I never really understood and this line: floating point exception core dumped.

At that time, I thought it was best to take a break and wait so that I could learn all this during my Masters. Yes, I had already chosen CFD to be my subject of study and was almost done with my application process. At last, the time came and my classes started. Initially, I was enjoying the lectures and was pretty excited by the fact that I was actually living the dream of studying abroad. But as the assignments started coming through, I was pretty much neck-deep in trouble.

I realized the level of understanding that everyone was operating at here was clearly above my comprehension. While everyone was applying the knowledge they already possessed, I found myself stuck with learning the basics. Nevertheless, I conquered what I had set out for and in retrospect, I do not have any complaints or regrets about my time in uni except for one thing.

I wish I had postponed my admission by a couple of years at least and worked somewhere to get some experience under my belt. I feel I could have gotten more from my MSc if I was a bit higher on the learning curve. I made the mistake of assuming all subjects could be studied similarly. Some subjects test you to your limits but in doing so, it brings out the best in you, and CFD is one such subject.

Besides the subject, my MSc was truly an eye-opener for me. I stayed away from home for the first time, learned how to do my chores, cooked for myself, prioritized my tasks, and worked part-time. I met tons of new people, learned new perspectives, and I feel this opened my mind a bit. I got to see my own coming of age, and it was a proud moment.

To conclude, I do not want to direct young people to do this or that. I would say do what you think is best for you. I just hope my experience gives you some context as to what NOT to do.

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