Getting started with CFD

With so much recent interest in the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for developing inhalation and nasal products – an entire afternoon at RDD 2008 was devoted to papers on the topic – you may be wondering how to get started using CFD yourself. The benefits are pretty obvious; why spend months tweaking device designs and performing experiments in the laboratory when you can hit a button on your laptop computer and find out within minutes how a change in a design dimension will affect retention time? Before you rush out to buy a software package with CFD capabilities, however, make sure that you take the time to understand its (and your) limitations.