Let's talk about what is computational fluid dynamics, or CFD, as it's usually

abbreviated.

As we saw in the Big Ideas in Fluid Dynamics,

fluid flow is governed by three fundamental conservation laws:
conservation of mass, conservation of momentum,
and conservation of energy.
Mathematical formulation of these laws lead to the governing equations
for fluid flow.
And these could be partial differential equations or integral equations.
If one applied the governing equations to an infinitesimal fluid
particle moving within the flow, one gets the partial differential equations.

A complementary view is to apply the conservation laws to a fixed volume

in the flow domain, the control volume.
And in that case, one gets the integral form of the governing equations.
The two are equivalent.
In either case, these equations are coupled and nonlinear.
This means that they can be solved exactly
for a ridiculously small number of special cases.
These are considered in introductory fluid dynamics textbooks.
In computational fluid dynamics, or CFD, we solve the governing equations,
approximately, on the computer using software.
And the software converts the governing equations
to a large set of algebraic equations.
That is, it uses numerical methods.
It goes from calculus to linear algebra.
And the large set of algebraic equations is inverted on the computer.

Current CFD technology can handle flow around realistic geometries

and complex physics.
So you're solving very complex set of governing equations.
And this is an exciting time in CFD.