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Simulation, explained properly
Guides to what engineering simulation actually computes — across fluids, structures, heat, electromagnetics, acoustics and the coupled problems that need more than one of them. Written to be useful whether or not you ever run our software.
Fundamentals
What is engineering simulation?
The whole field in one page: what a solver actually does, and which family of analysis answers which kind of question.
9 min read
What is CFD (computational fluid dynamics)?
What the solver is doing, why the mesh and the turbulence model decide the answer, and how to tell a good result from a pretty one.
12 min read
What is FEA (finite element analysis)?
Stress, deflection and modes — what FEA computes, and the three places it quietly lies to you.
11 min read
What is thermal analysis?
Conduction, convection, radiation and conjugate heat transfer — and how to tell which one your problem is.
10 min read
What is electromagnetic simulation?
Magnets, motors, transformers and induction heating — the low-frequency world, and where RF diverges.
10 min read
What is acoustic simulation?
Where noise comes from in a model: cavity modes, radiating structures, and flow-generated sound.
9 min read
What is multiphysics simulation?
When one physics is not enough: one-way chains, two-way coupling, FSI, and how coupled runs fail.
11 min read
What is explicit dynamics?
Crash, impact and drop test — why they need a different solver, and what the time step really costs.
9 min read
Method
Reference
Under the hood
The open-source stack behind modern simulation
Every solver, mesher and library in the stack — what each is genuinely good at, and what licence it carries.
15 min read
code_aster: the deep open-source FEA solver
The nuclear-grade structural solver: what it covers, what it demands, and why its depth is worth the learning curve.
9 min read
Elmer: open-source multiphysics for EM, thermal and acoustics
One code covering electromagnetics, heat, elasticity and acoustics — with coupling handled inside the solver.
9 min read
SU2: open-source CFD built for adjoint optimisation
The CFD code to reach for when the objective is shape design rather than a single flow answer.
8 min read
OpenRadioss: the open-source crash and impact solver
An industrially validated crash code, open-sourced — and why explicit work needs one rather than an FEA option.
8 min read
OpenFOAM and the case for a GUI
Why OpenFOAM is hard to start with, what a GUI legitimately fixes, and what it must not hide from you.
11 min read
Buying
Or skip the reading
SHD Sim is a desktop CFD workbench with the meshing, physics setup, solving and reporting in one window. The free tier runs real cases up to 250,000 cells of fluids, or 100,000 nodes of solid, with no account required to download.