CFD and computing time/requirement

[JetAceX]

Hi everyone,
it's my first post here and hopefully I'm not going to ruin it I tried searching for this topic but couldn't find anything similar.
I'm currently a junior in Aerospace Engineering and I guess my questions is what type of specs for a computer(preferably laptop) do you suggest to run CFD simulations efficiently. I have an HP pavilion dv2000 with an Intel Core duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz and 3GB of RAM.
I'm using Solidworks Flow Simulation 2009 and a typical project takes about 15 min to solve, and a batch solve of about 20 projects gave me an estimated time of 109 hrs and I definitely want something relatively faster.
Thank you for your time !

 

[FeX32]

Something with as much power as you can get.

http://www.apple.com/macpro/

I used to run some complex FE simulations on my MacBook Pro with no problems.
But if the simulation takes hours I would suggest using a PC instead of a laptop due to heat transfer limits.


Fe

 

[IRstuff]

Either that, or look to some way to port the software or the problem to a GPU. For a few hundred dollars, you can get a GPU with more horsepower than most supercomputers from the last 5 yrs.

TTFN

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[JetAceX]

Yeah I don't think I can afford a 12-core mac for $5000, it looks nice but I don't think SolidWorks runs on mac. Thanks for the help, I'm googling porting into GPU do you recomment a specific site you know of ?
Thanks again !

 

[IRstuff]

You can probably start with:

http://developer.nvidia.com/category/zone/cuda-zone

http://www.greatlakesconsortium.org/events/GPUMulticore/Shinn_talk.pdf

http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/op...-other/87575-gpu-linear-solvers-openfoam.html

I couldn't immediately find whether there were any commercial CFD packages that ran on GPUs, but doing a websearch should find you lots of possibilities, particularly if you're able to code up the problem yourself.

TTFN

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[KENAT]

I'd ask the question over in the Solid Works forum.

I'd look at maximizing ram (though you're stuck with 4GB sort of on 32 bit), processor speed (unless it can handle multi core - which it may - you might be better off with fewer cores but higher speed per core) and if it's like many FEA programs a nice quick hard drive - maybe even solid state.

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