The past, present and future of CFD for agro-environmental applications

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a proven simulation tool which caters to almost any field of study. The CFD technique is utilized to simulate, analyze, and optimize various engineering designs. In this review, the discussion is focused on the application of CFD in the external atmospheric processes as well as modeling in land and water management. With respect to its application in environmental investigations, numerous CFD studies have been done in the atmospheric processes where generally only the fluid flow characteristics are investigated. The application of CFD to soil and water management is still limited. However, with the present demand for conservation and sustainable management of our soil and water resources, CFD application in this field is fast emerging especially in structure designs of dams and reservoirs where CFD offers fast reliable results with less labor and cost. Every CFD model should be validated in order to be considered accurate and reliable. However, a benchmark or standard procedures in validating CFD models is not yet available. This probably answers why the success of the CFD models is still mostly attributed to the user’s skills and experience. At present, the degree of application of CFD to the agro-environmental field is limited by the computing power and software used, however, the fast ever computing power of PCs continually expands the potential of CFD and can be generally more flexible at accounting for the unique aspects of every CFD project. This allows easy access to conduct simulation studies from simple to complex models. In this paper, after a state of art analysis of the past and present application of CFD in the agro-environmental applications, its future directions were discussed, in order to potentially serve as a guide for researchers and engineers on what project or investigations can be conducted.