1972: the year CFD became modern

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]1972 is the most important year in CFD history.

[00:00:04]Two huge things happen in the same year.

[00:00:07]First, the finite volume method becomes the standard discretization. It conserves mass and momentum by integrating over each control volume.

[00:00:17]Second, Suhas Patankar and Brian Spalding at Imperial College published a SIMPLE algorithm, a procedure for coupling pressure and velocity.

[00:00:27]SIMPLE and its descendants are the workhorses of every commercial CFD code today.

[00:00:32]If you have run a steady-state simulation, you use the 1972 algorithm.

[00:00:38]Full breakdown in the video description.