BOSTON, Nov. 23, 2021 -- Flexcompute, the developer of the ultra-fast, GPU-native CFD solver Flow360, is proud to announce the appointment of Dr. Philippe Spalart as Director of Fluid Sciences. One of the most influential figures in computational fluid dynamics, Dr. Spalart brings unparalleled expertise and a legacy of innovation that continues to shape the aerospace industry.
Renowned for developing the Spalart-Allmaras (SA) turbulence model in 1992 and co-creating Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) in 1997, Dr. Spalart’s contributions have become foundational in aerodynamic simulation across commercial aviation, defense, automotive, and renewable energy sectors.
"Flexcompute has the DES available, and makes simulations easier — recognizing the value of unsteady simulations — making it much faster and more financially feasible, and will predict the noise of this unsteady aircraft to help understand how loud the drone will be,” said Dr. Spalart.
His work at NASA fundamentally transformed how engineers model turbulent flow, bridging the gap between empirical modeling and high-fidelity simulation. From Boeing to Airbus, virtually every modern aircraft has benefitted from technologies enabled by the SA model and DES approach.
“Flexcompute will benefit not only from his world-renowned expertise on turbulence modeling,” said Dr. Qiqi Wang, co-founder of Flexcompute and associate professor at MIT. “But also from Philippe’s broad knowledge in fluid mechanics and extensive industrial experience. These will help us build technology to help our customers achieve a much faster turnaround in their engineering design with state-of-the-art accuracy.”
With Flow360, engineers can run full-aircraft simulations in hours instead of days, dramatically accelerating the pace of design. This performance uplift—combined with Dr. Spalart’s leadership—will empower aerospace companies and startups alike to design safer, quieter, and more efficient aircraft.
“Running this unsteady simulation is necessary to understanding future safety problems,” added Dr. Zongfu Yu, co-founder of Flexcompute. “Running this unsteady simulation can be very expensive but Flexcompute provides the technology to simulate it much much faster at an affordable price, making it possible to study these facts with advanced modeling.”
As the demand for high-fidelity CFD grows across industries—from drones and air taxis to submarines and wind turbines—Dr. Spalart brings a clear vision for ensuring simulations are not only fast but also accurate and reliable.
“CFD is going to be a bigger and bigger part of engineering but it’s still not perfect,” noted Dr. Spalart. “We don’t want things to just be faster, it needs to be accurate — if it’s flawed, then machine learning isn’t going to fix what you want it to fix.”
At Flexcompute, we believe that building trustworthy simulation tools is not just a technological challenge but a responsibility. With Dr. Spalart’s leadership in fluid sciences, we’re raising the bar for what’s possible in high-performance simulation—and making it accessible to those creating the future of aerospace and beyond.
