modeling technology/depth

How far are we from being able to do things like simulate and engine in operation with a cad model?


I mean, though everyone complains that they aren't so great, we do have models of the weather of the entire atmosphere. I wouldn't be surprised if one day we were able to model the combustion, gas expansion, work output, etc of a single-cylinder airplane engine with CAD model, for example.


Can anyone tell me how close we are to being able to do that now?
Edited by: 2ms1

i think we may be ..my supv. .. a drag racer has some type of software that analysizes how changes in valve intake...etc affect his motor

Does it integrate with actual CAD models or does he have to input things like valve diameter, intake plenum volume, intake runner length, combustion chamber dimensions, etc?


The ultimate of course would be if you could make a model of an engine and then have it "run" in ProE. That is the the engine would be started, and intake charge of air would be drawn into the cylinder, fuel injector would spray incertain amount gasoline, the sparkplug would fire, chemical energy of gasoline would convert to certain amount of heat energy, a certain amount of heat energy would seap outby conduction through wall of cylinder, a certain amount of heat energyinput wouldgo toward expanding gas pushingpiston move out, turn crankshaft, exhaust valve would open, certain amount of heat energy would escape through exhaust, certain amount of torque output at crank, blah blah


It would be neat if all this could be done as "animation". I wonder when it will be possible. 10 years from now our desktops will have the same power as the supercomputers that today are able to simulate/predict the weather of the entire world at once. I see no reason other than computing power why it couldnt be done today.