CFD SOFTWARE

[Rob Davies]

Just wonderng what cfd programs you guys are using and what its costing? Im just about to go ask the head of department for some fluent software at a cost of 2000 us dollars - i am sure that will go down well.

Thanks, Rob

[Rob Davies]

Just wonderng what cfd programs you guys are using and what its costing? Im just about to go ask the head of department for some fluent software at a cost of 2000 us dollars - i am sure that will go down well.

Thanks, Rob

[Joel Miller]

Hi Rob,

We use FLUENT, with GAMBIT and TGRID meshing programs. We are also evaluating COSMOS FloWorks. We also use some specialist engine CFD programs too.

FloWorks is very user friendly and integrates nicely with the CAD system (SolidWorks) leading to far less frustration all round. It uses an adaptive meshing strategy and is pretty much "point and shoot". On the other hand, the FLUENT package gives you complete control over every aspect of your analysis.

What is it that you want to do with CFD? Surely you could come to some arrangement with the distributors of the software? A lot of them just want to give their stuff to uni students (especially FSAE students).

Joel.

[JConway-UofManitoba]

can your simulation software accept inputs from a CFD program? That might be your greatest asset....

I believe virtual 4-stroke accepts input from Fluent.

What does your solid modelling program have for CFD partners? With Pro/E, you're looking at CFDesign.

JPC

[BeaverGuy]

I don't know of any CFD programs that we have access to here at Oregon State as undergrads. I was thinking about writing my own code to do some rough analysis on the flow distribution of our current intake plenum and some other designs.

As for the working with Virtual-4stroke, I thought that it used fluent or Matlab as a processor in place of its own and did the flow analysis as part of the simulation. I may be wrong about that but that was the impression I got.

[Denny Trimble]

FloWorks is now packaged with the SolidWorks Education Edition and Student Edition, so if your department has SW installed, you have access to FloWorks. Open up SW, tools-addins-check FloWorks.

Or, you can buy the student copy for $200 or so. Not bad for SW + Cosmos/Works (FEA) + Cosmos/Motion (Dynamics) + FloWorks (CFD). That much capability would run about $20k if you had to pay commercial license prices.

[Joel Miller]

Denny:
Do you guys use floworks? What kind of uses do you have for it? Have you done any external flow aerodynamics or plenum design with it?

We've found FloWorks to be very user friendly, and the integration with the CAD program is great. We're only new to it, haven't crunched serious numbers yet, so I'd appreciate any suggestions or observations on how it compares to the FLUENT package.

[Denny Trimble]

We have one guy who's working on wings, and he's done external flow analysis on the car with wings (takes days), and on just the wing elements. I can't say that I know all the details, or how it compares to Fluent. I'm sure Fluent is more powerful, but I haven't used it personally.

[Joel Miller]

Wings, eh? You guys looking into it seriously? Any chance we might see them on your car next year?

[Denny Trimble]

I'd give it a 20% chance right now. We're still a couple months away from having prototypes on this car for summer testing (and SCCA Nationals!), so we have a ways to go.