AUTHOR: Angelos Chronis

Despite the continuous development of performance simulation tools, their seamless integration in the design process is still a challenge. One area that has remained largely unexplored is computational fluid dynamics (CFD). CFD simulations have a large variety of applications in architecture but due to the complexity of the physics involved and the computational demand of the available solvers, their use has been restricted to final design stages and validation of design assumptions.

Previous work (Chronis et al 2011, 2012) has demonstrated the potential of integrating less computationally expensive CFD simulation engines not only in early design stages, to inform preliminary design decisions, but also in generative form finding processes. The Fast Fluid Dynamics (FFD) solver was developed based on a numerical scheme initially developed for the computer graphics industry (Stam 1999). The integration of the FFD solver in various frameworks was proven to be a promising test-bed for experimentation and has yielded interesting research results.

Chronis, A., Turner, A. and Tsigkari, M. 2011 “Generative fluid dynamics: integration of fast fluid dynamics and genetic algorithms for wind loading optimization of a free form surface”, Symposium on Simulation for Architecture and Urban Design 2011, Boston, USA
Chronis, A., Tsigkari, M., Davis, A. and Aish, F. 2012 “Design Systems, Ecology and Time”, ACADIA, Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture, San Francisco, USA
Stam, J. 1999. “Stable fluids”, in Proceedings of the 26th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, August 1999, Los Angeles, USA, 121-128