CFD Hackathon 2025 at NTU MAE - A Recap of Innovation and Collaboration

50 Students, 3 Days, Smart City Solutions: NTU's CFD Hackathon 2025

What happens when you give passionate engineering students cutting-edge simulation tools and real-world urban problems to solve? Magic.

Picture this: It's 10 AM on a humid Singapore morning, July 23rd, 2025. Coffee cups in hand, 50 students from Nanyang Technological University's School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering are streaming into what would become their home for the next three days. They're not here for lectures or exams—they're here to revolutionize how we think about airflow in cities.

Welcome to the CFD Hackathon 2025, where computational fluid dynamics meets the pressing challenges of sustainable urban living and product design.

Why This Hackathon Mattered More Than Most

While hackathons are nothing new in the tech world, this wasn't your typical "build an app in 48 hours" event. These students were tackling problems that affect industries and people daily.

• Mixing and flow distribution systems (optimizing how fluids combine and distribute in industrial processes)
• Tube bundle heat exchangers (improving efficiency in power plants and chemical facilities)
• Electronics thermal management (keeping our digital world from overheating)

The focus? "Practical CFD Engineering with ANSYS"—a comprehensive approach that translates complex fluid dynamics theory into actionable engineering solutions.

The 2-day intensive training covered:

• Geometry Preparation and Meshing Fundamentals
• Turbulence Modeling Theory and Application
• Heat Transfer and Radiation Physics
• Complete CFD Workflow from Setup to Results

This hands-on learning model bridged the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application, ensuring that participants gained real engineering experience beyond academic concepts. Each lecture was immediately reinforced with workshops using industry-relevant cases like mixing tees, air manifolds, and electronics cooling systems.

The Tools That Made It Possible

The technical setup was impressive but accessible:

• ANSYS Fluent for the heavy lifting
• Python-based custom solvers for the creative solutions

Real Mentorship, Real Impact

Here's where the hackathon really shone. Thanks to Dr. Arif's networking magic, students weren't just left to figure things out alone. Industry professionals from CADIT Consultants were right there in the trenches:s

• Ts. Faiz Fauzi, a CFD specialist at CADIT and Sr. Application Engineer, conducted the workshop and helped teams navigate tricky convergence issues and professional-grade post-processing workflow.‍
• Yi-Xiang, the school's account manager, provided students with comprehensive guidance on the workflows and assisting participants in navigating the Ansys CFD software.

Watching these mentors work was like seeing master craftspeople share their secrets. No pretense, no gatekeeping—just genuine knowledge transfer from professionals who remembered what it was like to be students.

Winner Announcement – Outstanding Individuals

The climax of the event arrived with anticipation as judges—comprised of the eminent NTU faculty who evaluated the innovation, practicality, and technical prowess displayed by each individual. Amid fierce competition and high standards, a select group of individuals stood out for their exceptional contributions using CFD.

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As a token of appreciation, all participants will receive a complimentary 3-month access to the ANSYS Learning Hub — an extensive online platform offering expert-led courses, tutorials, and resources designed to elevate your skills in simulation, engineering, and design. Meanwhile, the top 8 winners will receive a professional certificate signed by Ansys.

What This Means for the Future

Events like this matter because they bridge a crucial gap. University courses teach theory brilliantly, but they can't always show students how that theory applies to real challenges. Industry has the practical knowledge but doesn't always have time for education.

The CFD Hackathon 2025 proved that when you bring these worlds together—add passionate students, supportive mentors, and meaningful challenges—something special happens.

As our trainer, Ts. Faiz Fauzi put it:

"I came here teaching CFD and I'm leaving knowing these students seek genuine hunger for deeper exploration and understanding in the field."

Looking Ahead

The success of this hackathon has organizers already planning future events. And honestly? The world needs more gatherings like this.

In an era where climate change, urbanization, and technological advancement intersect in complex ways, we need engineers who can think across disciplines. We need problem-solvers who understand both the technical details and the human impact.

Based on what I saw at NTU in July, the future of engineering is in very good hands.

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