The past two decades have been the transition of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) from a predominantly research pursuit to an industrial tool, thanks to developments in the methodology and computers. This paper focuses on one of the key areas of development, the ability to efficiently deal with the complexities of industrial geometries. It is demonstrated that the introduction of highly flexible unstructured meshes, together with general and application-specific tools for automated mesh generation and control, has enabled CFD to be applied to virtually all types of industrial equipment and at the same time reduced the demands on the user. When allied with improvements to numerical solvers, physics modelling and computer hardware, the end result is a powerful capability which is increasingly being exploited for design purposes.
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