Computational Thermo-Fluid Mechanics

This is the third part of a three-part series of courses (Fluid Mechanics II and Heat Transfer II) designed to provide core knowledge of the fundamental principles and engineering applications of heat transfer and fluid mechanics. These areas collectively make up the field of Thermo-Fluid Mechanics or Thermal Fluid Sciences but are traditionally taught as separate courses. However, in this course, these areas are presented in a more integrated manner. The finite difference method (FDM) is presented in detail and applied to various types of partial differential equations representing the wave equation, heat equation and Laplace equation. Then the upwinding concept is introduced to deal with convected- dominated flows. Then stability analysis is discussed for different finite difference schemes. The domain-based numerical techniques namely the finite volume method (FVM) and finite element method (FEM) are briefly introduced. In parallel to the theoretical concepts, a computer software package is used for the simulation of different multi-physics applications.