Engineers who deal with computational fluid dynamics (CFD), for example in the fields of automotive engineering, aeronautics or in academic research and development, know the phenomenon: in CFD simulations, especially in projects with a large number of grid cells and transient calculation methods, enormous amounts of data are generated during the course of the calculation. Handling them, writing and reading the data, often proves to be a bottleneck during the workflow.

Our long-standing software partner, the data specialists from Intelligent Light, have now developed Kombyne™, a High Performance Computing (HPC) library that allows the user to extract and render result data in real time during the running CFD calculation without significantly disturbing the working memory and computing power (keywords: “on the fly”/”in-situ”/”in-transit”). Furthermore, Kombyne is also able to control CFD calculations during the run (“steering”). Details on the functionality and programme features of Kombyne™ can be found here.

CFD Consultants GmbH has been involved in the project for years: In order to make Kombyne™ available for the various CFD codes, interfaces to these codes have to be programmed. Our engineer René Thümmler was involved in the integration of Kombyne™ into the CFD code Hydra. Hydra is the in-house calculation tool of the turbine manufacturer Rolls-Royce for the aerodynamic design of gas turbines. An article on the calculation of compressor maps of a multi-stage axial compressor using Kombyne™ calculation control was published in January 2022 in San Diego as part of the AIAA SCITECH 2022 Forum (link to article and video presentation).