A Solution of Teaching CFD to link Study and Research

The expanding applications of computational fluid mechanics (CFD) in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, environmental engineering require researchers with both self-learning and code development abilities. With the aim of teaching upper grade undergraduate students and young graduate students both mathematical theory and practice abilities, Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) is carrying out a novel implementation of CFD education including fundamental algorithm, code skill, basic example and application development in the framework of hyperbolic system framework. The fundamental elements of advection in both incompressible and compressible fluid flow are extracted as a unified part to teach. In theory, one dimensional (1D) advection equation could be generalized to 1D hyperbolic system such as Euler equation and two dimensional (2D) convection equation, and finally be generalized to high dimensional system of fluid flow. Therefore, the teaching of numerical skills in 1D advection almost forms the most important aspect and a first step in learning CFD. Students will learn time marching scheme, numerical flux calculation and space reconstruction technique, with both mathematical inductions on boards and code development with one basic code written in Fortran given by the teacher. With all those together, students will easily generalize their knowledge, numerical and coding skills to 1D system, 2D convection equation, and even high dimensional systems. Education experience tells that undergraduate students could master basic elements of CFD, and graduate students could extend the fundamental algorithm to other system in research level.