How does a computation fluid dynamics (CFD) specialist spend their holiday? If you were Troy Baumgardner, CFD specialist for Rand IMAGINiT Technologies, you would have been watching your fireplace very intently—and wondering why the wood that was burning so hot was not making you any warmer.
Troy Baumgardner, simulation specialist at Rand Worldwide.
“I remember seeing the Christmas movie characters and a scene where they are in bed, a fireplace burning in the bedroom, they in their blankets and hats,” recalled Baumgardner. “The fire was not helping heat them either.”
We catch up with Troy to find out more about his fireplace research.
“Why are we so interested in analyzing hypersonic flight craft when something [like] the common fireplace is not understood?” he wondered and then commenced to use simulation to answer his own questions.
Indeed, fireplaces do more to warm the heart than the body. The primary mode of usable heat transfer for a fireplace is radiation—not convection as most people think. Most of the heat from convection goes right up the chimney.
“You don’t want the hot air from the fire in your room,” said Baumgardner. “You will have a room full of smoke.”
Evolution of the Franklin Stove
“For thousands of years, everyone from kings to paupers counted on fireplaces for warmth,” noted Baumgardner. Yet, the fireplace seems to have not been sufficiently studied.
It was thousands of years ago that someone got the bright…