Smoking meat (and other food) in a barbecue smoker doesn’t sound complicated, but there are more factors at work in producing delicious food than you would expect. Barbecue enthusiast Travis Jacobs, president of Jacobs Analytics, was aware that in windy conditions the air flow through the bottom inlets and the top outlet vents of a smoker can be variable, leading to internal temperature gradients and swirling air that removes smoke and makes a less savory product. He wanted to make a smoker that could smoke food to perfection in any conditions. Unlike most of us non-engineer weekend barbecuers, he turned to computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to solve this problem.
LEDs are increasingly used in automobile headlights because of their small size and reduced energy consumption. But, though they are much more energy efficient than traditional headlights, most of the energy required is converted to heat rather than light — 70 percent, in fact. This presents a challenge to engineers and designers because, since they are semiconductor-based, the diode junction of LEDs must be kept below 120 C. Maintaining temperature below this limit typically involves cooling airflow from an electric fan combined with heat sink fins.
The vast majority of engineering decisions are made without the insights that engineering simulation could provide into the impact of those decisions. It is estimated that 80 percent of the total product development costs are locked in by choices made early in the design process — and subsequent analysis and optimization now has to live within the implied constraints or face very costly and time-consuming design changes.
With increasingly complex products taking advantage of advanced materials, additive manufacturing and IoT, this issue will grow exponentially as many more permutations and design options must be evaluated for any given product. The only way to harness the potential of these mega trends, and tame the inherent complexity, is to bring simulation upfront in the product development process. To design the products of tomorrow, leading companies are doing exactly that.