.CFD was mostly not known 40 years ago, and slide ruler and digital calculators were mostly used in engineering calculations. As digital computers became more powerful, together with software and numerical techniques, CFD rapidly offered new possibilities.

In this talk we will look briefly into the history of CFD, and how this developed in the SINTEF Flow Technology group. We will see that CFD is much more than just applying some CFD software. We look at CFD as one of many tool-box elements that we need to solve challenges. The user of the tool is the key element to successful results. As computers have evolved it is now possible to run simulations with billions of grid nodes. Does this indicate that we can do more accurate simulations and the need for models inside the CFD simulations will disappear? The knowledge needed to solve problems goes far beyond the CFD tool itself. We therefore look into some methods that should be considered in multiphase applications. Often, CFD may contribute with key input to simpler, pragmatic models, which may be used in digital twins or other type on models to analyze and optimize system behavior.

We finally discuss the possibilities and challenges with working with CFD. We have recently observed the new hype on artificial intelligence (AI). Will AI make CFD engineers superfluous in the future?