Whats the difference between computational mechanics and computational fluid mechanics?
Computational mechanics means mechanics of solids, i.e. stress, vibration, and material behavior like creep, plasticity, etc. CFD means computational fluid dynamics i.e. the motion of liquids and gases. Modeling the static behavior of fluids is a very simple problem compared with dynamics (unlike the case of solid mechanics) and hence the subject was originally named CFD because of the emphasis on the dynamics modeling.. CFM (computational fluid mechanics) also includes modeling thermal effects (including phase changes from liquid to gas), chemical reactions. e.g. combustion etc, and interaction between fluid and solid objects, e.g. noise propagation from vibrating structures, or the stresses in the hull of a high speed boat caused by the surface waves that it creates when moving. The latest name for modeling problems which cross the traditional boundaries of different branches of physics or engineering is “multiphysics” (and this is where the most research is going on since “basic” CM
