Alternatives to Ricardo Wave?

[Tilman]

Heyho everybody,

our engine guys want to do some simulation on their engine setup, we contacted Ricardo for their software Wave and Vectis, and they responded quickly. But our faculty advisor, who has to sign the contract with Ricardo, is not very amused to sign a contract that is based on English Law.

Therefore the question: Is there any similar software available to FSAE/Formula Student teams for free? Do you know any companies that produce engine simulation software?

Thanks,

Tilman

[exFSAE]

But our faculty advisor, who has to sign the contract with Ricardo, is not very amused to sign a contract that is based on English Law.

Huh? Not very amused? What exactly does that mean? Has he not worked with anyone outside of Germany before?

[ibanezplayer]

You can get in touch with the Lotus Engineering Software guys through www.lesoft.co.uk, (http://www.lesoft.co.uk,) they make engine simulation and analysis software, you might also try GT-Power.

What is the hang-up on the Ricardo contract? Essentially, from what I understand, if they take you to court over a breach of contract, it will be in England. Many companies dealing internationally have some sort of stipulation like this. Simply put, follow what they outline in the contract and then you don't have to worry.

[Tilman]

Originally posted by exFSAE:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">But our faculty advisor, who has to sign the contract with Ricardo, is not very amused to sign a contract that is based on English Law.

Huh? Not very amused? What exactly does that mean? Has he not worked with anyone outside of Germany before? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

From the University Grant Request:

The central contact is responsible for upholding all terms detailed in the master license agreement, and shall be held fully responsible as the representative of the university in the event that the master license agreement is violated.

This means that if a member of our team violates the license agreement, our faculty advisor can be held fully responsible for this. In german law, this is forbidden, because our faculty advisor did not do anything wrong. But it seems to be allowed in English law. And since our faculty advisor does not want to be held responsible for something he is not responsible for, he asked me to look similar software.

Bye,

Tilman

[exFSAE]

I see, interesting!

Not being an engine guy, I'm not sure what alternative software there is. Wasn't there something called Virtual 4 Stroke or something?

Alternatively, what if you just emailed Ricardo explaining the situation and the German law bit? I'd imagine they could draft up a contract agreement whereby each student that will use this software has to sign, and is held individually responsible.

[Chris Allbee]

Or you could contact one of the other German teams and ask them how they handled the situation.

That being said, there is Virtual 4 Stroke and I think one called Engine Analyzer.

However, Ricardo's software is really powerful and couples with CFD and mechanical software with "relative ease."

[Shashi]

You could also try the free software by Lotus. You could import your models to ADAMS Engine and get going!

[Tilman]

Heyho,

Ricardo called me half an hour after posting this topic http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

They told me that it is not a problem that some of our team sign the license agreement as well, so we are fully responsible, too, which we really are.

However, Ricardo's support is really good and extremely quick, it took 5 hours to get the first license agreement which was ready to sign and if we were as quick as Ricardo we would already use their software ...

Bye,

Tilman

[Jan_Dressler]

Although the problem seems to be solved, another alternative to Ricardo Wave would be AVL Boost.

Jan

[RFR09]

I've used Virtual 4 Stroke and Ricardo Wave, V4S was definately easier and the support was spot on! They provide a 600CC model in their tutorial for you to build from. I was able to model our engine in about 2 hours and was able to run about a full simulation solve every 5 mins on my desktop. Wave is very nice as well, but less user friendly. Will take you a full week to figure out.

I was able to compare all the results between the two and have the opinion that they are equals. V4S allows you to interface with Fluent making it a very powerful combination.

The design judges loved my simulation results, but loved it even more when I was able to show them how the numbers actually were correlated to engine dyno data.