CFD-Simulations in the Early Product Development

A growing range of products shifts the product development in focus. Especially the early design phase defines the costs and quality. Thus, to ensure the quality of the products, different concepts are designed and evaluated. A tool for the evaluation of the different designs is simulation due to being fast and cost efficient. But simulation in the early phase still remains a problem. This results of the basic and fast changing concepts, which take too much effort to be converted into a simulation model. To get around these circumstances, we propose a method for an online modelling in the design process. Instead of defining the simulation model at once, the method modificates the simulation model during simulation run time. Furthermore, the functionality is shown in a CFD simulation using the meshless Smoothing Hydrodynamics method. Using the GPU to achieve real-time simulation, the method allows a WYSIWYG design-simulation development helping to raise the quality of products.