In this episode I'm joined by Bartosz Górecki and Wojciech Regulski, two of the founders of QuickerSim, a Warsaw-based company behind the MATLAB CFD toolbox of the same name. We talk about their experiences as part of a startup accelerator — including a few tips for getting those all-important early sales. The "plate-juggling act" that is, starting a company whilst still finishing up your PhD. And perhaps most importantly of all in a CFD context – "why MATLAB?" ### Shownotes • QuickerSim – CFD T...
May 08, 2018•37 min
This episode is another departure from our regular interview shows. Today I'm joined by a panel of 5 guests who kindly shed some light on a few of the issues facing women in CFD. Our expert panel includes Chris Wolfe, Althea de Souza, Aniko Rakai, Irena Juretić and Elisabeth McLean. Between them they cover a breadth and depth of experiences in CFD, whilst sharing an infectious desire to promote our industry as a great career choice for the next generation of female engineers. We cover some groun...
May 01, 2018•47 min
This is a talk I gave at last year's ESI OpenFOAM conference which focussed on the OpenFOAM-related guests that have been on the show & my key takeaways from talking to them. It also gives a bit of background to why & how the podcast came about in the first place. The interviewees in question include Franjo Juretić (Creative Fields), Karim Fahssis (ZephyCloud), David Heiny (SimScale), Darrin Stephens & Chris Sideroff (Applied CCM) and Fred Mendonça (ESI OpenCFD). If you're new here t...
Apr 26, 2018•26 min
Season 03 is go - back with 9 new interviews, at least one roundtable, a couple of bonus episodes & our newly-rebooted informal show, Talking CFD Social. Loads of stuff to perk up your commute, yard work or anywhere else you might want some CFD in your earbuds. Don't forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts & join the conversation happening in our Facebook Group at www.talkingcfd.com/fb
Apr 23, 2018•3 min
It’s the last episode of this season & we’ve covered some ground in those 10 episodes. Both in terms of the types of CFD we’ve featured & the countries we’ve touched. So I’m pleased to round out the season with a combination of the two. I’m joined by Joana Bretz, founder of CINAR Brazil, a consultancy that uses specialist CFD to solve some pretty complex problems in the cement industry. Joana shares her insight into that world, including: • why CINAR created a niche-specific software tha...
Jan 31, 2017•30 min
Today we’re talking about an integral part of most CFD processes that often get’s ignored. It comes before we start our CFD process, yet often has a huge impact on that process — CAD. I’m chatting with Mark Gammon, Technical Director of the Cambridge office of ITI & one of the team behind their software package CADfix (the clue is in the name). Mark has an in-depth knowledge of CAD that many of us CFD people don’t & he fills me in on: • what makes CAD so tricky to work with in the first ...
Jan 24, 2017•31 min
This is one of those end-of-season "different" episodes where we aren’t talking about the CFD business. We’re discussing NAFEMS, a not-for-profit organisation working to benefit simulation professionals worldwide. I chat with Althea de Souza, long-time NAFEMS member, chair of the CFD working group & commissioning editor for their quarterly magazine, about: • what NAFEMS do, who they do it for and most importantly - why we should care; • NAFEMS' role in advocating for CFD & trying to ensu...
Jan 17, 2017•31 min
In this episode, I’m talking with Sandip Jadhav, one of the founders CCTech - the team behind a host of CFD-related projects. We couldn’t do them all justice, so we focused on two of their more well-known projects, Simulation Hub (a cloud CFD platform with a difference) & LearnCAx (a free, online learning resource for CFD). We chat about: • why they’re specifically targeting designers with Simulation Hub & why they chose to build “web services”, rather than a general purpose CFD platform...
Jan 10, 2017•34 min
I managed to find another Robin to talk CFD with today. Robin Bornoff has been with Mentor Graphics (& Flomerics before that) for 20+ years, focussed on delivering “good science to engineers. We're talking all about democratisation & appification in CFD. We cover: • why calling niche CFD tools “apps” might be doing them a disservice & whether CFD tools will become commodified; • what the CFD industry has in common with the automotive industry, both in terms of it’s past & future;...
Dec 20, 2016•32 min
I'm joined in this episode by Mark Seymour, one of the founding team behind Future Facilities, a CFD company focused on the data centre & electronics cooling sectors. In addition to the origins, focus and growth of the company, we get to talk about Mark's role as the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) & what that entails in a modern CFD company. We discuss: • how to position your CFD product or service based on the business benefits it delivers to a customer — as opposed to just another featu...
Dec 13, 2016•32 min
Today is the first episode with 2 guests — Darrin Stephens & Chris Sideroff — business partners in Applied CCM, based in Australia & Canada respectively. Whilst Applied CCM have several CFD-related activities, this interview is essentially all about Caelus, their CFD software derived from OpenFOAM®. I really wanted to take this opportunity to dig into the whys & wherefores of Caelus, including: • what makes Caelus different to OpenFOAM, both in terms of features & philosophy; • w...
Dec 06, 2016•34 min
In this episode I’m joined by Franjo Juretić, one of the founders of Creative Fields & the primary developer behind their CFD meshing toolkit - cfMesh. Franjo & I discuss how a part-time project, that would only take a couple months to finish, turned into a 13+ year journey. Along the way we cover: * how they use a freely-available, open-source product — cfMesh — to increase brand awareness & feed into their commercial offerings; * how cfMesh fits into the OpenFOAM landscape & wh...
Nov 25, 2016•31 min
In this episode I’m talking with Nicolas Tonello of Renuda about running a successful CFD consultancy / development / training business. We also open the box on Code_Saturne - an open-source CFD software that you may not know too much about. Nicolas & I chat about: • why being independent is so important to them & how it benefits their clients; • how they balance their consulting, development & training activities; • how CFD can be much more than just an R&D tool; • what is Code_...
Nov 22, 2016•34 min
Today I’m talking with Kelly Senecal, one of the founding team behind Convergent Science. He tells me about how the days spent hand-crafting meshes led to them to develop CONVERGE CFD - a CFD package which automagically handles meshing for you. Kelly & I discuss: • how they get along fine without a company president; • how CONVERGE was almost open-source & how they're pioneering a hybrid (open & closed source) model with their take on user-defined functions; • why there's more to CO...
Nov 15, 2016•32 min
Talking CFD Season 02 is almost here - 10 more interviews with the people behind some of today's most interesting CFD businesses & a couple of new things to watch out for: Check out: • http://www.talkingcfd.com/social – for the new live video CFD social • http://www.talkingcfd.com/fb – for the new listener Facebook group
Nov 05, 2016•4 min
It’s the final episode of the season & I'm joined by almost the full cast of interviewees for an hour long Q&A session, originally broadcast live on YouTube. Our expert panel comprised Wolfgang Gentzsch (UberCloud), Patrick Hanley (Hanley Innovations), John Chawner (Pointwise), Haysam Telib (Optimad), Fred Mendonça (OpenCFD), Karim Fahssis (MeteoPole) & our sales coach Jeff Waters. The sound quality isn’t up to standard, but hopefully the content makes up for it somewhat. We touched ...
May 17, 2016•55 min
As this is the last 1-to-1 interview episode of the season, I thought I'd try something a little different. This time I’m not speaking to a company founder, I’m speaking to a domain expert about a business essential that we could all do with being a bit better at - sales. I take 30mins and get tactical with CAE sales expert (& podcast host) Jeff Waters about why engineers might not be that great at sales & what we can do about it, including: • how introverts can learn to become great sal...
May 10, 2016•33 min
In this episode I'm joined by Stefan Harries, one of the co-founders of Friendship Systems, the team behind CAESES, a multi-faceted software package enabling parametric shape optimisation for CFD. Stefan & I discuss: • whether parametric shape optimisation will ever become mainstream in CFD; • why a free version is just one part of a multi-pronged customer acquisition strategy; • how paying attention to your customers can lead to entirely new use cases for your product; • what you need to do...
May 03, 2016•32 min
In today's episode I had the opportunity to talk to Karim Fahssis - an MIT awarded innovator, a bicycle adventurer and the co-founder of multiple businesses in the CFD space. We cover some ground, mainly around CFD in the wind power industry, but also around doing business in Asia: • how maintaining a consultancy practice can give you great insight into how to improve your product offerings; • why taking CFD outside the *normal* design/development cycle & getting closer to the money can prod...
Apr 26, 2016•31 min
Today I’m joined by Fred Mendonça of OpenCFD to chat about to chat about the challenges of running a business where the primary offering (OpenFOAM®) is open-source & freely-available. We dig into: • where/how/if being open-source can have an impact on a code’s value proposition; • why fostering a community — and opening up channels to allow that community to make useful contributions — are some of the largest & most important challenges Fred faces with OpenFOAM®; • why the success of the...
Apr 19, 2016•28 min
In this episode I'm talking with Haysam Telib, CEO of Optimad a Turin-based consultancy & software house working in the freeform deformation & shape optimisation space. We cover some ground, including: • how consulting is a great way to get ideas for products your customers would buy but.... • why transitioning from consulting to products is MUCH harder than you might imagine (& it's not just cashflow that's difficult); • how open-source & open-innovation are shaping their busine...
Apr 12, 2016•30 min
This week I’m joined by John Chawner, President & Co-Founder of Pointwise, the company behind the CFD meshing software of the same name. John & I discuss what it takes to build a CFD business with longevity, including: • why it’s more important than ever to have a laser-focused value proposition in order to communicate with the growing CFD market; • why you don’t need to reinvent the business “wheel” to have a successful CFD business; • why we’re not likely to see a Pointwise solver or p...
Apr 05, 2016•35 min
I'm joined in this episode by aerodynamics expert & software developer Patrick Hanley to talk about the business that he has built over the past 20+ years around his suite of aerodynamic software. We get into: • how Patrick's philosophy of "putting the biggest program on the smallest machine" guides the development of his toolkit; • why downloadable software is not dead or dying IF you do it right; • how Patrick has taken the best bits of a SaaS/cloud business model & incorporated them i...
Mar 29, 2016•26 min
Today I’m lucky enough to catch-up with David Heiny, one of the five co-founders of SimScale - the impressive cloud simulation platform for FEA & CFD. We touch on: • how software-as-a-service might help to bring simulation into design processes that currently/traditionally don’t benefit from FEA & CFD analysis; • how introducing a community aspect to their platform has helped lower the barriers to entry for new users & incentivised the exchange of know-how; • the importance, as they ...
Mar 22, 2016•27 min
In this episode I chat with Wolfgang Gentzsch of UberCloud - the company trying to enable HPC for simulation via the cloud – and we discuss: * the evolution of UberCloud from an idea through the experimentation phase, vendor marketplace phase to a provider of computing as a service; * building a community of interested parties - end-users, software providers & infrastructure providers - learning what they need & then building it; * how Docker has shaped the evolution of UberCloud and jus...
Mar 15, 2016•33 min
In this episode I'm joined by Paul Bemis to talk about the lessons he's learned building CoolSim - the data centre airflow modelling application - including (but not limited to ;-) * their client-server approach to building a software-as-a-service offering on top of Ansys Fluent; * how that client-server setup gives them a distinct advantage when it comes to the all-important customer support; * the merits of focusing on a niche market and becoming a domain expert in that niche; * plus why teach...
Mar 15, 2016•35 min
I give you a little intro to what Talking CFD is intended to be & who I am. I also give you a heads-up about the upcoming, end-of-season roundtable where you can get involved & ask questions to past interviewees. I also urge you to jump on the mailing list if you haven't already done so at http://www.talkingcfd.com
Mar 15, 2016•4 min
