The two greatest requirements for developing new products are innovation and tools that help you work quickly,” says Ed Williams, president, Blue Ridge Numerics. Version 9 of CFdesign CFD software will help meet these requirements.
“The new version sets up quickly for first-pass fluid flow and heat transfer simulations,” continues Williams. “You can generate high-fidelity design reviews 20 times faster than with previous versions.”
Version 9 of Cfdesign lets you quickly set up fluid flow and heat transfer analyses. New features reduce the time required to set up a design for analysis.
Two new features — auto mesh sizing and rules on parts — let novices and experts set up simulations in minutes. Auto mesh sizing executes a comprehensive topological interrogation of the geometric model, assigning mesh sizes based on curvature, geometric gradients, and proximity to neighboring features. It also instantly manages critical transition regions.
Automatic Mesh Sizing applies the correct mesh sizes to complex geometries with one click.
Rules-on-Parts detects MCAD part names in an assembly and automatically assigns volumetric boundary conditions and material properties. Boundary conditions include total heat generation, which can be steady state, transient, or temperature dependent. Materials are assigned from the new CFD program’s library of fluids, solids, printed circuit boards, and the newly added two-resistor electronic components. The library can be tailored to specific needs.
The new AccelerantTM Solver uses proprietary CPU algorithms to reduce the time needed to attain fully converged fluid-flow and heat-transfer results. Simulation results for simple models arrive 1.4 times faster than in previous versions; complex simulations are completed even more quickly.
Said Williams, “Our surveys show that CFdesign completes projects up to 70% faster than physical test methods and 65% faster than traditional CFD tools.”
Other new analysis features include:
Solar loading shows transient electromagnetic heat transfer from the sun. It includes radiation through transparent media and shows shadowing based on the sun’s movement. Simulation set up is simple: Specify time of year, time of day, and location on the globe using the database in the software, or assign specific latitude and longitude coordinates.
Compact Thermal Models answers such questions as: “What are the temperatures within microchips during system operation?” Only two parameters are needed for the software to supply board temperature, junction temperature, case temperature, heat transfer between junction and board, and heat transfer between junction and case for every component within the system. CFdesign V9 supports many microchip configurations.
Free motion shows “solids” movement in any flow direction. It enables or limits any of the six degrees of freedom and applies forces, gravity, initial velocity and rotation. Free-motion also tracks forces and torque, detects collisions, and records subsequent reactions, and accepts gravity and gravitational acceleration, even designating values different from those on Earth.
Thermostatically controlled fans and blowers automatically operate at a specified trigger temperature for a realistic full-cycle system view.
Free Motion enables any of six degrees of freedom and tracks forces and torque among other measurements.
The software helps most when it’s used to conduct comprehensive studies before physical prototype testing. Two new enabling technologies for this effort are called Process Automation Scripting and the Design Review Server.
Process Automation Scripting creates a project-specific script that defines model set up, analysis execution, and results extraction for similar analyses that differ parametrically.
The Design Review Server distributes computations across available networked computers, providing a convenient way to conduct extensive, interactive review sessions while working within current hardware and network limits.
Automatic Sizing and Accelerant Solver took this fuel injection intake manifold from MCAD to first pass flow and thermal simulation in minutes.
CFdesign V9 is fully associative and integrated with Autodesk Inventor, Catia V5, CoCreate, Pro/Engineer Wildfire, SolidWorks, Solid Edge, and UGS NX 3D MCAD systems.
The Solar Loading feature lets engineers explore shadowing based on the sun’s movement.
Fluid-flow and heat-transfer results can be transferred as an input deck for structural simulations in Abaqus, ANSYS, Cosmos, Nastran, and Pro/MECHANICA.
Blue Ridge Numerics
www.cfdesign.com
Filed Under: Aerospace + defense, 3D CAD, Factory automation, FEA software, Software
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