Floefd
Floefd
Floefd
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Overview
The award-winning FloEFD is part of a new breed of CFD tools;
Concurrent CFD. FloEFD is a full-featured general purpose CFD
tool which is seamlessly embedded into many of the most
popular MCAD systems such as CATIA V5, SIEMENS NX,
SolidWorks, Creo. FloEFD combines all simulation steps - starting
with use of your 3D CAD data for model preparation, to mesh
generation, solving and results visualization - in one easy-to-use
package.
Concurrent CFD can reduce simulation time significantly in
comparison to traditional CFD tools; it enables users to optimize
product performance and reliability while reducing physical
prototyping and development costs, without time or material
penalties.
Combined with your MCAD software, FloEFD provides you with a
powerful simulation tool to:
Improve product performance, functionality and reliability;
Reduce physical prototyping and production costs; and
Minimize risk of making design mistakes.
ENGINEERS
CFD SPECIALISTS
MANAGERS
Overview
Traditional CFD
In traditional CFD, the model geometry is first exported from the CAD system. The geometry then needs to be re-imported into
the users CFD tool, meshed, solved, the results post-processed and then reported back to the design team. The work is usually
done by a specialist analysis group, or outsourced, so it is necessary for the design team to explain what needs to be done. By the
time the results are in, the analysis model has become stale, as the design has moved on, often making it difficult to act on the
results.
Upfront CFD
Upfront CFD attempts to improve this situation by streamlining the interface between the CAD and the CFD tool. Although this
results in a much cleaner import of the geometry, the analysis is still performed outside of the CAD system. This frequent transfer
from the CAD and CFD software can result in a degradation of your information.
Concurrent CFD
Concurrent CFD operates very differently. It is MCAD-embedded CFD so the work is done within the MCAD environment.
Embedding CFD inside an MCAD tool is hard to accomplish, but delivers very significant benefits. Design changes necessary to
achieve the desired product performance are made directly on the CAD model, so the design is always up-to-date with the
analysis.
Upfront CFD
By looking at the CFD process in more detail, a number of steps are revealed. Within both conventional and upfront CFD it is
necessary to transfer geometry from the CAD system and clean it before it is suitable for analysis. This process has to be repeated
as design changes are made in the analysis suite and taken back into the CAD system to keep the two synchronized.
Typically this approach will require fluid spaces to be watertight for the analysis. In CAD terms this is referred to as healing the
geometry to make it manifold, whereas analysts often refer to it as cleaning the CAD model. This is a generic requirement for CFD
analysis, so it appears in all three approaches.
Also, these systems require creation of a cavity to represent the flow space. Most conventional CFD meshing tools work by
meshing a solid, so they require a solid object to mesh. For a CFD simulation the solid object is the flow space, which has to be
created as a dummy part within the CAD system by Boolean subtraction of the entire model from an encapsulating solid. This is
usually done in the CAD system and it is this inverted flow space that is transferred to the CFD system for meshing.
Concurrent CFD
By comparison, Concurrent CFD works differently. The geometry used for the analysis is native to the CAD system. This means that
geometry does not need to be transferred because the designer never has to leave the CAD system.
Concurrent CFD therefore does not require the transfer geometry or create cavity steps. Meshing still takes place, but takes just
minutes rather than hours of iterating back and forth.
Concurrent CFD provides another benefit that is not shown here. As mechanical designers undertake their own analyses, they
quickly learn how to build analysis-friendly geometry within the CAD tool, eliminating the clean geometry step, so the time
savings can be even greater than those indicated.
Heat Transfer
Visualize and understand temperature fields in and around practically
anything including electronic devices, ovens, heat exchangers and
drilling heads. Analyze the complex physical processes such as heat
conduction, heat convection, conjugated heat transfer between
fluids, surrounding solid materials as well as radiation among many
others.
Mixing Processes
Explore and visualize mixing of fluids and gases to determine the
optimum mix inside a wide range of products such as washing
machines, dishwashers, kitchen and bathroom appliances and even
fuel cells.
Flow Fields
Force Prediction
Examine operational forces for valves, flow-induced loads
for stress and deformation analysis temperature
distribution for thermal stress analysis.
Interface to Pro/MECHANICA
FloEFD for Creo Parametric results can be applied as loads for
structural analysis inside Creo Simulate. The automated
interface significantly reduces the amount of time necessary
for preparing analysis models and enables you to calculate
structural damages due to thermal loads.
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FloEFDTM for NX
FloEFD is a fully embedded Concurrent Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solution for NX. FloEFD enables you to analyze and
optimize complex fluid flow and heat transfer effects on your designs directly inside NX. Because FloEFD is an embedded solution,
it looks and feels exactly as NX. Therefore, you use the same user interface for design and analysis CFD analysis simply becomes
an extension of your design tool. And unlike other 3rd party CFD programs, FloEFD interacts directly with the native 3D CAD data
with no translation or copies - in order to keep pace with on-going design changes. If you are interested in using a powerful,
industry-proven and award winning CFD solution for NX, then you should take a look at FloEFD.
Automotive/Transport
Electronics
Lighting
Power Generation
FloEFD Capabilities
Heat conduction in fluid, solid and porous media with/without conjugate heat transfer and/or contact
heat resistance between solids.
Subsonic, transonic, and supersonic gas flows, hypersonic air flows with equilibrium dissociation and
ionization effects.
Radiation heat transfer between opaque solids, absorption in semi-transparent solids and refraction
in semi- and transparent solids.
Volume (or surface) heat sources, e.g. due to Joule heating, Peltier effect, etc.
Various types of thermal and electrical conductivity in solid medium, i.e. isotropic, unidirectional,
biaxial/axisymmetrical, and orthotropic.
Equilibrium volume condensation of water from steam and its influence on fluid flow and heat transfer
Water film evolution (surface condensation/evaporation, melting/freezing, film motion).
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Design Services
If you prefer to outsource part or all of your physical design, our Mechancal Analysis team is ready to help. When you engage us,
you effectively add to your staff some of the worlds most experienced engineers in design services. Starting with any design
information you have, we will quickly plan and execute an assessment, regardless of the stage of your product.
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