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1997-2013 by ESI-Group
This ESI Group documentation is the confidential and proprietary product of ESI-Group, Inc. Any
unauthorized use, reproduction, or transfer of this manual is strictly prohibited. This documentation is
subject to limited distribution and restricted disclosure.
CFD-ACE, CFD-ACE+, CFD-CADalyzer, CFD-VIEW, CFD-GEOM, SimManager, CFDVisCART, CFD-Micromesh and CFD-FASTRAN are registered trademarks of ESI-Group.
Portions of this product are owned by third-party software vendors.
Revision Information
The information in this guide applies to all current ESI CFD products until superseded by a newer
version of this guide.
Published:
September 2013
UA/CFD_/12/24/00/D
Disclaimers
The documents and related know-how herein provided by ESI Group subject to contractual conditions
are to remain confidential. The CLIENT shall not disclose the documentation and/or related know-how
in whole or in part to any third party without the prior written permission of ESI Group.
About ESI GROUP
ESI provides a world leading software editor for the numerical simulation of prototype and
manufacturing process engineering in applied mechanics. The key to ESI's success is the use of
realistic material physics, providing "as good as real" virtual solutions, in order to replace the lengthy
trial and error processes on real prototypes.
ESI has developed an extensive suite of coherent, industry-oriented applications to realistically
simulate a products behavior during testing and real life use; to refine manufacturing processes for
desired product performance, and to evaluate the effect of the environment in which the product is
deployed.
ESIs products represent a unique collaborative and open environment for End-to-End Virtual
Prototyping, thus eliminating the need for physical prototypes during product development. This
solution allows a productivity gain, innovation acceleration and significantly reduced costs.
For more information about ESI Group, visit www.esi-group.com.
About ESI CFD
ESI CFD is a technology leader in the field of advanced computational fluid dynamics simulation
software backed by more than 20 years of research-based knowledge throughout a wide range of
industries. ESI CFDs broad range of products and services provide all of the necessary tools for
advanced multiphysics analysis in a virtual prototype environment, significantly reducing time and
expense through comprehensive up-front modeling and simulation. Key focus areas include
aerospace, automotive, biomedical, fuel cells, MEMS, microfluidics, plasma and semiconductor.
Contact Information for ESI CFD
ESI CFD, Inc.
6767 Old Madison Pike, Ste. 600
Huntsville, AL 35806
Phone: (256) 713-4700 Fax: (256) 713-4799
Software Support: support.cfd@esi-group.com
Software Sales: cfdinfo@esi-group.com

Table of Contents
ACE+ Suite V2013.2 ............................................................................................................ 1
ACE+ Suite of Applications ............................................................................................. 1
Supported Platforms........................................................................................................ 1
Backward Compatibility ................................................................................................... 2
Running Older Versions .................................................................................................. 2
CFD-GEOM V2013.2 ............................................................................................................ 3
New Features and Improvements.................................................................................... 5
Corrected Problems ........................................................................................................ 9
Known Problems ............................................................................................................. 9
CFD-VisCART V2013.2 ...................................................................................................... 11
New Features and Improvements.................................................................................. 13
Corrected Problems ...................................................................................................... 16
Known Problems ........................................................................................................... 16
CFD-ACE+ V2013.2 ........................................................................................................... 17
New Features and Improvements.................................................................................. 19
Corrected Problems ...................................................................................................... 24
Known Problems ........................................................................................................... 25
ACE+ Suite V2013.1 .......................................................................................................... 27
V2013.1 Corrected Problems ......................................................................................... 29
CFD-GEOM .................................................................................................................. 29
CFD-VisCART ............................................................................................................... 29
CFD-ACE+ .................................................................................................................... 29
CFD-VIEW .................................................................................................................... 30
SimManager .................................................................................................................. 30
ACE+ Suite V2013.0 .......................................................................................................... 31
V2013.0 Corrected Problems ......................................................................................... 33
CFD-GEOM .................................................................................................................. 33
CFD-VisCART ............................................................................................................... 33
CFD-ACE+ .................................................................................................................... 34
CFD-CADalyzer ............................................................................................................ 34
CFD-VIEW .................................................................................................................... 34
SimManager .................................................................................................................. 34

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ACE+ Suite V2013.2

This document introduces the V2013.2 Release of the ACE+ Suite of applications. It lists the new
features, enhancements and corrected issues in this Release.

ACE+ Suite of Applications

The ACE+ Suite includes a broad range of applications that provide the necessary tools for advanced
multiphysics analysis in a virtual prototype environment. The complete list of applications is shown
below.
CFD-GEOM

CFD-VIEW

CFD-VisCART

CFD-CADalyzer

CFD-ACE+

CFD-TOPO

CFD-FASTRAN

SimManager

Supported Platforms
The V2013.2 ACE+ Suite of applications is supported on the following platforms:
Platform

Package Canonical Name

Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/Win7 on Intel or AMD (32-bit)

pc-windows-nt5-x86

Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/Win7 on Intel or AMD (64-bit)

pc-windows-nt5-x86_64

Linux RedHat Enterprise 6+ on Intel or AMD (32-bit)

pc-linux-rhe6-x86

Linux RedHat Enterprise 6+ on Intel or AMD (64-bit)

pc-linux-rhe6-x86_64

Linux RedHat Enterprise 5+ on Intel or AMD (32-bit)

pc-linux-rhe5-x86

Linux RedHat Enterprise 5+ on Intel or AMD (64-bit)

pc-linux-rhe5-x86_64

Linux Suse 11 on Intel or AMD (64-bit)

pc-linux-suse11-x86_64

Linux Suse 10 on Intel or AMD (32-bit) - deprecated

pc-linux-suse10-x86

Linux Suse 10 on Intel or AMD (64-bit) - deprecated

pc-linux-suse10-x86_64

Notes

V2013.2 applications are not supported on AMD Athlon processors or on Intel Pentium III
processors due to the lack of SSE2 support on these CPUs.

Browsers: The webhelp system is known to work properly when viewed with Internet Explorer
6+ (MS-Windows), Netscape 6+ (MS-Windows, Linux) or Firefox 3+ (MS-Windows, Linux). It
is not recommended to use Google Chrome for this purpose.

The next major Release of the ACE+ Suite of Applications (V2014.0) will not be supported on
the platforms marked as deprecated. On the other hand, support on new platforms, such as
Suse 12, is expected in the next major Release.

Starting with V2015.0, the ACE+ Suite of Applications will not be supported on any 32-bit
platforms (Windows or Linux).

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ACE+ Suite V2013.2

Like the previous versions, ACE+ Suite V2013.2 will be Intel

Cluster Ready!

Backward Compatibility
There are no known backward compatibility problems with the ACE+ Suite of Applications, except for
the issue related to CFD-GEOM V2006 (or earlier) scripts, as mentioned below.
Due to numerous changes to the core of CFD-GEOM in V2007.6 the Python wrapped functions also
changed significantly. This made it impossible to retain backwards compatibility for Python scripts.
This means that CFD-GEOM V2007.6 or later versions cannot process CFD-GEOM V2006 or earlier
Python scripts. It is indeed an unfortunate side-effect and one that was not taken lightly but we felt
that it was necessary in order to build a better CFD-GEOM core. So if you plan to use CFD-GEOM
V2006 script files you have a couple of options:
1. Keep CFD-GEOM V2006 installed and run your V2006 scripts through that version. Your
V2013.0 license will allow V2013.2 and all older versions (including V2006) to run. The
V2013.2 versions of CFD-ACE+ and CFD-FASTRAN will read and use V2006 CFD-GEOM
generated DTF files with no problem.
2. Convert your CFD-GEOM V2006 script files to V2013.2 format. This is a manual process of
translating the V2006 script file to make use of V2013.2 script language. In most cases it is
just a matter of replacing the function calls with equivalent V2013.2 syntax (and leaves all
your program control structure in place). ESI Group customer support staff can advise you on
how to do this.

Running Older Versions

The 2013.2 software can be installed with existing 2013.1, 2013.0, 2011.0, and earlier ESI software
directories. You will continue to be able to use old and new versions of the software, which will allow
as much time as needed for transition. If you install 2013.2 software with existing 2013.1, 2013.0,
2011.0, or earlier software, you must remember to modify your PATH so that the newest UTILS
directory, i.e. $ESI_HOME/2013.2/UTILS/bin, appears first in your PATH. Then you may run older
versions of the software using the runver <version> option. For example, on Linux systems,
assuming a Bourne-type shell:
% export PATH=$ESI_HOME/2013.2/UTILS/bin:$PATH (Bourne-type shell syntax)
% CFD-GEOM runver 2011.0

(runs 2011.0 CFD-GEOM)

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CFD-GEOM V2013.2

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CFD-GEOM V2013.2

New Features and Improvements

CFD-GEOM V2013.2 includes the following new features and improvements.

New Support for Analytic Surfaces

Previous versions of CFD-GEOM supported only those surfaces that were internally defined by
splines. During CAD import, any analytic surfaces encountered in the file were always converted to
splines. Starting with this Release, CFD-GEOM supports surfaces whose underlying representation is
analytic. Geometric and meshing algorithms involving analytic surfaces (e.g. planes, cylinders,
spheres, etc.) are usually much faster and more robust because they can be computed analytically
rather than iteratively. The following need special mention:

When importing CAD models containing many analytic surfaces, a significant speedup is
expected (a 2-fold speedup has been observed in many cases)

Significant speedup is expected during various geometric operations such as Boolean

operations

Significant speedup is expected during surface meshing

Enhanced CAD import performance in V2013.2

Enhanced surface meshing performance in V2013.2

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CFD-GEOM V2013.2
Additionally, many of the geometric operations have been modified so that, when possible, analytic
surfaces will be generated instead of splines. The size of the GGD files may also be smaller when
they contain analytic surface definitions instead of the traditional splines.

Enhanced Advanced Covering Tool

The Advanced Covering Tool, located in the Trimmed Surface Creation toolbox, has been enhanced
to now allow five different options for the starting surface Automatic, Best Fit Plane, Best Fit
Cylinder, Best Fit Sphere and Existing Surface. The previous surface covering method in CFD-GEOM
always assumed a least squares plane fitted to the given curve data as the starting point of covering.
In many cases, the given curve data is better fitted to a sphere or to a cylinder and the resulting
surface would be smoother and less prone to discontinuities.
As an example, the images below show a case where two disjoint circles are fitted using the current
methodology; when using a plane an untrimmed surface will result while using a cylinder a valid
trimmed surface is generated.

Advanced Covering tool: using Best Fit Plane option (center); using Best Fit Cylinder option (right)

Additionally, when the given curve data conforms to a plane/cylinder/sphere surface then the analytic
surface definition will be used directly and no conversion to a spline is performed.
The default starting surface option for the Advanced Covering Tool is Automatic and it is up to the
user to use this default or choose one of the other four options. The following is an example where the
Automatic option worked better than the Best Fit Cylinder option. The Automatic method chose a
sphere (middle image) whereas forcing a cylinder caused the surface to have discontinuities because
the axis of the cylinder (determined strictly by the input data) was computed to be between the two
circular profiles instead of through them.

Advanced Covering tool: using Automatic option (center); using Best Fit Cylinder option (right)

In the scripting interface, this capability is available through GGeometry.AdvancedCovering2

New Orientation Cube

An optional orientation cube is now shown in the upper left hand of the graphics window. The
orientation cube allows you to quickly change the view to the one desired by clicking on a face or an

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CFD-GEOM V2013.2
arrow. The arrows are only visible in a primary view such as front, top, bottom, etc. The images below
show the orientation cube.

New Orientation Cube

Enhanced Solid Extrusion and Revolution Tool

The solid extrusion and revolution tools have been enhanced to now optionally generate solids, i.e.,
unstructured domains; users need to simply activate the Create Solids option in these tools. The
earlier versions of these tools only created surfaces.

Create Solids option in the Solid Extrusion tool

Enhanced Graphical Feedback during Sketching

When the construction plane is active along with the point creation option then many of the interactive
geometry creation tools such as lines, three point circles/arcs, two point circles, etc. will provide an
enhanced feedback during the generation process. An origin of the plane will be indicated by showing
two direction vectors corresponding to the U and V parametric directions on the plane, and when the
mouse is at a value such that it corresponds to a U or V value of zero then a blue indicator will be
displayed. Dashed lines will show when a subsequent point is at the same parametric value as a
previous point and when interactively sketching a two point or three point circle/arc.

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Enhanced Face Projection

The face projection methods (used in the Project Face Tool) have been optimized for speed,
specifically in cases where a face is projected onto multiple surfaces. Consequently, compared to the
previous version, the Normal projection method may now be up to thirty times faster and the Closest
point method up to four times faster.

Miscellaneous Improvements

The construction plane graphics has been modified such that in most views it will always
remain visible.

The Snap option has been moved next to the point creation option in the entity bar.

For very large models, graphics performance is expected to be better than in the previous
version.

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CFD-GEOM V2013.2

Corrected Problems
The following are the corrected issues in this release.

When generating a hybrid mesh, if the triangle mesher was invoked on a structured face
entity bounding a semi-structured domain, it would cause the domain's mesh to be destroyed
and not rebuilt. This would lead to errors during DTF output. This issue has been corrected.

Due to certain improvements, better cell quality can be expected for certain semi-structured
meshes.

Known Problems
These are the known serious problems with the latest release. Some or all of these problems may be
corrected in a future release.

Updating Existing DTF Files: Updating existing DTF files from models containing polyhedral
zones (i.e. coarsened blocks) is not currently supported. Only fresh DTF files may be written
from models containing such grid types.

Undo Operations in the Edge Editor: Undo is unavailable in the Edge editor. If the user
quits the edge editing session at any point where the system is in an error state (faces with
opposing edges without the same number or grid points) CFD-GEOM will reinstate the grid
system to the last known good state.

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CFD-VisCART V2013.2

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CFD-VisCART V2013.2

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CFD-VisCART V2013.2

New Features and Improvements

CFD-VisCART V2013.2 includes the following new features and improvements.

New feature to automatically cover unwanted holes in the geometry

CFD-VisCART meshing automatically closes or covers holes in the geometry that are smaller in size
than the cell size specified at the surfaces. To cover larger holes, a new meshing option has been
introduced in this release. This option works to automatically cover larger holes in the geometry
during mesh generation, thus preventing the mesh from leaking into unwanted regions. This option,
Max Hole Size to Cover, is available under the Advanced tab in the Generate Mesh dialog.
This feature is currently not supported in parallel meshing mode.

Brain stem geometry with missing facet (a). Mesh leaking outside through the missing facet (b). Mesh leak
prevented by using this new feature to automatically cover/close holes

Mesh leak prevented by using this new feature a small protrusion or dimple would result where holes are
covered/closed

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CFD-VisCART V2013.2

New option to write out multiple cell groups with Single Domain mesher
When using the single domain mesher, a new option, Write Separate Cell Group into DTF, has been
introduced for Box, Sphere and Cylinder mesh sources. When this option is selected for a source, all
cells generated within the source are saved into a separate cell group (or Volume Condition) within
the DTF. This option thus introduces a multiple volume mesh capability for the single domain mesher.
Typical applications for this capability would include writing out separate Volume Conditions for
radiator and condenser volumes in a vehicle underhood mesh, modeling simpler geometries in
electronic components, among others.
As this capability is simply putting cells within a source into a separate cell group and there is no
projection or conformity to mesh source shape curvatures, the boundary surfaces of these cell groups
(interfaces) can be jagged/stair-stepped in nature.

Radiator modeled using separate cell group option in CFD-VisCART and VC-based heat source in CFD-ACE+

A power supply box mock-up generated using separate cell group option for box, sphere and cylinder sources
no geometries. Simulation results from CFD-ACE+

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CFD-VisCART V2013.2

New Shrink-wrapping option to generate cells of the exact specified size

In earlier versions, the shrink-wrap meshing algorithm would make sure that the cell generated at the
surfaces would be equal to or smaller in size than the specified Maximum Mesh Size. In most cases
though, the size of the cells would end up being smaller than the specified value. The reason behind
this is the fact that CFD-VisCART is a Cartesian based mesher where cells are generated by splitting
the bounding box (in X, Y and Z directions) successively into smaller and smaller cells, each time
exactly into half. In other words, if a bounding is 40 units long in a particular coordinate direction, cells
in the mesh can have sizes of 20, 10, 5, 2.5 and so on in that direction. Thus, if a user specifies a
value of 8 for Maximum Mesh Size, they would end up getting a size of 5.
Although this behavior stays the same in this release, a new option, Adjust Bounding Box to Fit has
been introduced. When this option is selected, the specified size will be honored by automatically
changing the size of the bounding box in all three coordinate directions such that successive
splitting of the bounding box arrives at the specified value.
This option is available under the Mesh Refinement tab in the Generate Mesh dialog, when ShrinkWrap meshing option is selected.

Shrink-Wrap surface mesh: Cells more uniform and as specified

New Cubic Bounding Box option

To make it easier to set up cubic bounding boxes (X span = Y span = Z span), a new Cubic shape
bounding box option has been introduced in this release. This option is available in the Bounding Box
Setting dialog, when the Bounding Box Type is set to Box.
.

Effect of activating the Cubic shape bounding box option

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CFD-VisCART V2013.2

Corrected Problems
There are no corrected problems in this release.

Known Problems
These are the known serious problems with the latest release. Some or all of these problems may be
corrected in a future release.

16

Projected Single Domain mesher takes much longer to complete mesh generation if Feature
Preservation is activated and the final mesh quality may not be as good as the one generated
without Feature Preservation.

The Multi Domain mesher may encounter problems in handling a domain interface if two
surfaces are present at that location but they dont match exactly.

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CFD-ACE+ V2013.2

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CFD-ACE+ V2013.2

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CFD-ACE+ V2013.2

New Features and Improvements

CFD-ACE+ Solver
CFD-ACE+ Solver V2013.2 includes the following new features and improvements.

New Heat Exchanger models

Heat exchangers are found in many engineering systems to control the temperature by adding or
removing thermal energy. They have complex geometry including a large number of fins and tubes.
Resolving the detailed geometry of a heat exchanger is not desired and it would be prudent to utilize a
simplified model that accounts for the pressure drop and heat rejected across the heat exchanger.
With this release, the following simplified heat exchanger models are introduced:
1. Effectiveness-based models
a. Specify rate of heat transfer
b. Specify secondary fluid inlet temperature
2. Lumped model
Effectiveness-based heat exchanger model
The effectiveness of a heat exchanger () is defined as the ratio between the actual heat transfer and
the maximum possible heat transfer. The rate of heat transfer (qcell) is computed using the following
equation:
= 2, 1,

The heat rejected is then distributed amongst the computational cells, lying in the body of the heat
exchanger, downstream of the face. The distribution of heat exchanged throughout the heat
exchanger works best when the heat exchanger can be created by extruding the frontal face along a
direction perpendicular to the frontal face. CFD-ACE+ allows users to specify the Rate of Heat
Transfer or the Secondary Fluid Inlet Temperature. Users should also provide effectiveness data for
the heat exchanger. Effectiveness should be specified as a function of coolant mass flow rate and air
velocity in the required format.
Lumped heat exchanger model
The lumped model for heat exchanger allows users to directly specify the rate of heat transfer. This
value is distributed among the cells of the heat exchanger. The local heat transfer (qcell) is computed
using:

( )

( )

is the cell velocity, Tb is the bulk

Here qtot is the total rate of heat transfer, Vc is the cell volume,
temperature in the zone and Tc is the cell temperature. The lumped model could be used to simulate a
heat source (+qtot) or a sink (-qtot).
The heat exchanger models accounts for heat transfer only. To account for pressure drops, the heat
exchanger models must be used in conjunction with a momentum loss model such as the porous
media or momentum resistance, available in CFD-ACE+. These models can be used with any type of
geometric system (2D, 2D Axisymmetric and 3D) and with any cell type supported by CFD-ACE+ (tri,
quad, tet, prism, hex and poly). The heat exchanger models can be used with both porous media and
momentum resistance models, applied either on a separately meshed volume (VC) or a virtual region.
In CFD-ACE-GUI, the heat exchanger model is activated under MO->Adv tab as shown below.

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Activating Heat Exchanger Model

The DTF file contains solution data related to the primary fluid such as temperature, pressure and
velocities. In addition, the output also includes summaries of each heat exchanger in the model. The
summary prints out information such as average primary fluid variables, pressure drop across the
heat exchanger and the average heat exchanger effectiveness.

Heat exchanger model applied to incorporate radiator of an automobile

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CFD-ACE+ V2013.2
The following limitations apply to the heat exchanger models at this time:
1. For effectiveness-based models, the secondary fluid is restricted to single phase.
2. Each VC should have a unique frontal face and only porous/non-porous or MR/non-MR
interfaces can be selected as a frontal face.
3. The lumped model is currently not available for VC based porous media.

Improvements in Porous Media modeling

Flow through porous media plays an important role in a multitude of engineering applications and the
porous media model in CFD-ACE+ can be applied to many such problems. A porous region consists
of a rigid solid matrix with interconnected voids/pores that allow the flow of one or more fluids through
the material. It is impossible to mesh the voids/pores in detail and the porous media model makes it
possible to simulate such problems without explicitly meshing the voids.
a. Defining porous media on virtual zones
In previous versions, a porous region had to be meshed as a separate volume/zone in order to apply
the porous media model. With this release, users will be able to apply porous media models on a
virtual zone. Users can define one or more porous regions as a cylindrical or a polyhedral geometry.
Such virtual zones can be located within a single zone or span across multiple zones. The virtual
porous region is currently restricted to single phase flows and limited to flow and heat transfer
modules. For problems involving chemistry or electrokinetics, a separate volume/zone must be
created in the mesh and the porous media model should be applied to it. These limitations may be
removed at a later version.
In CFD-ACE+ GUI, when the Virtual Resistance Model option is selected under MOFlow, a VR tab
is added between the BC and IC tabs. In this VR tab, porous media and momentum resistance virtual
zones can be specified.

Obstacles in flow modeled using virtual porous regions

b. Modeling turbulence within porous media

Additional turbulence production terms due to the presence of solid material in porous media have
been implemented for the k and equations. The additional terms along with appropriate porous-fluid
interface treatment are available through the standard k- turbulence model. The modifications are
available for both VC based porous regions and virtual porous regions. The additional terms may
increase the number of iterations required to reach convergence. To avoid additional computational
time and if turbulence within the porous media is not important, VC based method should be used and
turbulence must be turned OFF for porous zones.

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CFD-ACE+ V2013.2

Velocity profile in a composite channel

Comparison of turbulent viscosity within porous regions

Comparison of turbulent thermal conductivity within porous regions

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CFD-ACE+ V2013.2

New species concentration based electrolyte conductivity for Electroplating

In Electroplating processes, local species concentration affects the local electrical conductivity of the
electrolyte, which in turn affects the deposition or etching rates. In this release, an option to specify
electrical conductivity as a function of species concentration has been introduced. The effect of using
this option is demonstrated with an Electroplating simulation example below.
This new option is available in CFD-ACE+ GUI, under VCE/MElectrical Conductivity.

Electroplating simulation: Electric field in the electrolyte with constant conductivity (left); with conductivity as a
function of species concentration (right)

New User Defined Subroutine option for Momentum and Thermal Slip
In earlier versions, the Slip Walls feature would use the first-order (Maxwell) slip model. In this new
release, an additional User-Defined Slip option has been introduced. Users can use this option to
specify their own velocity and thermal slip formulations through a user subroutine. As an example, this
option could be used to specify higher order slip profiles.
This new option is available in CFD-ACE+ GUI, under MOAdvSlip Walls.

New Surface Pressure output files for coupling with VA One and other thirdparty software
This output option is available for both steady and transient flow simulations and writes out Pressure
data for the selected boundaries into CGNS format files. These output files can then be used as input
files for ESIs Vibro-Acoustic simulation software, VA One, and for other (structural, noise, vibration,
etc.) software.

Surface pressure load source in VA One after importing surface pressure output files from CFD-ACE+

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CFD-ACE+ V2013.2

Corrected Problems
The following are the corrected issues in this release.

24

GUI
o

For Grid Deformation cases, when Follow Leader Node option (under Constrained
Displacement) is selected, the BC selection list would not be properly sorted. This
issue has been corrected and now the BCs are sorted by Name and Key number.

For Stress cases, when using the Setup Point Loads option, the nodes were listed
lexicographically (1,10,2,20,). The listing has now been made numerical
(1,2,10,20,) and thus more convenient.

Certain parameters related to Kamal Correlation (under MOVOFCuring Reaction)

have been renamed and reorganized for better clarity.

The VCGeneral setting mode has been renamed to VCGrid Deformation and is
shown only when the User Sub(ugrid) option under MODeform is selected.

The occasional GUI crash after scripting with spray injectors, macroparticles, fans,
MRFs and momentum resistances has been fixed.

Drawing of 2D and 3D polyhedral momentum resistance shapes has been corrected

to accurately project the user-specified points onto the central line (2D) or central
plane (3D).

The Solver Output window would occasionally get hidden if it was moved off-screen
intentionally or if the user's desktop size was reduced. Also, if the "View Output"
button was clicked multiple times, additional windows were opened for the same file.
Now, when "View Output" is clicked and the Output window is not open, the Output
Window is shown in its last position. However, if "View Output" is clicked while the
Output window is open, the Output window position is reset to be centered on the
application.

The display of table data, such as Monitor Points, which could be incorrect
immediately after editing (when the model was scaled or used non-standard units),
has been corrected.

The VC based Turbulence activation option was not being read correctly from the
DTF file. This issue has been corrected.

For Spray and Magnetic cases, the section Magnetic Tractive Force under
MOSpray has been renamed Magnetophoresis. Also, the Individual Particle
option (which would previously fail) has been corrected such that volumetric
susceptibility can be set on each injector.

Certain Progress Bar display issues have been corrected.

On certain Windows machines, saving DTF files to certain folders (for example,
Desktop) would not be allowed. This issue has been corrected.

Issues related to script warnings and errors not being displayed have been corrected.

Display and dumping of script commands for spray injectors, macroparticles, fans,
MRFs and momentum resistances are now disabled when the corresponding controls
(modules or higher level controls) are turned OFF.

GUI would crash when switching between two cases with mismatched number of tabs
(one example of such a situation would be if one of the cases had the Spray module
ON leading to an additional Inj tab). This issue has been corrected.

When using the Dump Script feature with Exclude all defaults in the script file
option, certain lists (like the Follower Node list in Grid Deformation cases) were not
being dumped correctly. This issue has been corrected.

The GuiBC.Set script function has been corrected to allow Shared/BC_Type

property to be set for a group of BCs that do not already have the same BC Type.

Release Notes

ACE+ Suite V2013.2

CFD-ACE+ V2013.2

Known Problems
The following are the known serious problems with this release. Some or all of these problems may
be corrected in a future release.

Solver
o

DSMC simulations may not work properly except for very simple cases.

The solver stops as soon as any macroparticle leaves the domain through an outlet.

There are intermittent memory leak problems when the chimera module is used with
the flow and turbulence modules.

In some situations, there may be a slight increase in the total pressure across an
arbitrary interface.

Robustness of parallel computation for Plasma simulations needs to be improved.

When solving for heat transfer, the COND_IN and COND_OUT values reported in the
Heat Transfer Summary for conjugate interfaces will not be accurate, if the cells next
to these conjugate interfaces are non-orthogonal.

The Solver may fail to simulate certain electroplating cases that involve Cyclic BCs.

If faces of a processor interface coincide with faces of a Fluid-Fluid interface on which

a Spray Boundary Injector is specified, then parcels will be injected twice from these
faces.

Heat Exchanger summary incorrect for parallel runs.

Energy summary incorrect for parallel runs.

Hotspots with heat exchanger models and high flow resistances.

Importing a NASTRAN file may take longer on RedHat Enterprise 6 compared to

other platforms.

Drag-and-drop does not work on Windows 64-bit systems.

GUI

ACE+ Suite V2013.2

Release Notes

25

CFD-ACE+ V2013.2

26

Release Notes

ACE+ Suite V2013.2

ACE+ Suite V2013.1

Release Notes

ACE+ Suite V2013.2

Release Notes

27

ACE+ V2013.1

28

Release Notes

ACE+ Suite V2013.2

V2013.1 Corrected Problems

The following applies to users upgrading to V2013.2 directly from V2013.1 release version.

CFD-GEOM
The V2013.1 Patch3 Release included corrections for the following software issues.

A very specific issue, related to projection of a face onto a sphere geometry made of two
trimmed surfaces, has been corrected. Earlier, only part of the face would get projected.

CFD-VisCART
The following are the corrected issues in this patch release.

In a very specific set of cases, if mesh generation would fail, it would combine all the patches
of the model into one patch in the active CFD-VisCART window. At this point, if the user
would save the VGD, it would overwrite the original VGD with this single patch VGD. A proper
error message is now written out (explaining the reason why mesh generation failed) and a
restore procedure has been implemented to prevent merging of patches.

In certain cases, boundary layer generation on bounding box patches would fail leading to an
internal error message. This issue has been corrected.

In scripting, the define_box_source_l command would not honor the user specified box
source name. This issue has been corrected.

VGD files generated in parallel meshing mode would include some extra records which would
create problems during later serial import. This issue has been corrected.

For cases using the Octree meshing approach, the mesh would be refined to a level greater
than what was specified. This issue has been corrected.

In certain multi domain meshes, the expected mesh refinement due to local domain cell size
specification was not observed. This issue has been corrected.

Certain Parasolid files could get imported with incorrect orientation. This issue has been
corrected.

On clicking the Suppressed column header in the Domain Explorer, the list would not get
sorted/ordered correctly. This issue has been corrected.

The CFD-GEOM, CFD-VIEW and CFD-ACE-GUI launch icons in the CFD-VisCART Toolbar
did not work properly. This issue has been corrected.

In a very limited number of cases, writing the mesh in DTF format would result in a program
crash. This issue has been corrected.

CFD-ACE+
The V2013.1 Patch3 Release included corrections for the following software issues.

Solver
o

Override General Output Controls settings (under OutSummaries) were not

working correctly for Species Summary. This issue has been corrected.

For cases with a large number of boundaries and being run in parallel mode, a buffer
related issue would be encountered in some instances during Radiation Summary
output. This would result in the termination of the Solver processes. This issue has
been corrected.

ACE+ Suite V2013.2

Release Notes

29

ACE+ V2013.1

In very rare cases, where the Output file (filename.out) ends up being very large in
size (several GBs), the CFD-SOLVER process could start consuming a large amount
of memory when the solution terminates. This issue has been corrected.

Restarting Electroplating simulations (that have Heat module activated) would result
in NaN being encountered for Enthalpy residuals. This issue has been corrected.

Using the Monte Carlo Radiation model would produce "Input Error: Incorrect ncuts"
warning messages (in the command line output) and the solution would likely be
incorrect. This issue has been corrected.

An error in the calculation of the Stream Function has been corrected

A new setting called Temperature Interpolation is available under SCAdvHeat

Transfer. This setting and its available options ensure proper interpolation of nodal
Temperature data in the peripheral regions of zones.

GUI

CFD-VIEW
The V2013.1 Patch3 Release included corrections for the following software issues.

On MS-Windows, loading time for polyhedral meshes has been significantly improved when
using the VC Based and Simplifying options.

The Color, Vector and Extra pulldown menus in the Display Settings Bar now dynamically
resize according to the width of their contents.

SimManager
The V2013.1 Patch3 Release included corrections for the following software issues.

30

On running Parametric Studies involving MO, IC, SC or ML parameters, SimManager would

crash. This issue has been corrected.

When running a transient simulation using SimManager, the timestep counter in the Residual
Plotter would display only the last two digits of the timestep number. This issue has been
corrected.

Release Notes

ACE+ Suite V2013.2

ACE+ Suite V2013.0

Release Notes

ACE+ Suite V2013.2

Release Notes

31

ACE+ V2013.0

32

Release Notes

ACE+ Suite V2013.2

V2013.0 Corrected Problems

The following applies to users upgrading to V2013.2 directly from V2013.0 release version.

CFD-GEOM
The V2013.0 Patch3 release included corrections for the following software issues.

Transforming (e.g. translating, mirroring) a surface, that includes (in its definition) an edge
generated using multiple underlying curves, would result in a program crash. This issue has
been corrected.

In the Boundary Layer Meshing tool, clicking the Status column header (to sort the
boundaries based on enabled/disabled status) would result in a program crash. This issue
has been corrected.

The CFD-GEOM interface will not allow generation of a tetrahedral mesh when the model did
not contain an unstructured domain (Mesh button will be grayed out). This mesh generation
attempt would still get journaled though if the user hit the F2 key or used the middle mouse
button to apply/execute the operation. This would thus produce a journaled script that would
fail upon later execution. A pop-up error message has now been added that informs the user
that no unstructured domains exist this in turn also prevents journaling of the command.

CFD-VisCART
The V2013.0 Patch3 Release included corrections for the following software issues.

In a very limited number of cases, when generating high cell count meshes (several millions
of cells) in parallel mode, an error could be encountered during saving of the mesh in the DTF
file. This issue has been corrected.

In a very specific topological scenario, an invalid Thin-Wall would get generated (due to
incorrect mesh processing) leading to failure of downstream processes. This issue has been
corrected.

If the range of cell sizes in a mesh is very large, it would result in the mesh improvement
process not working properly. This was mainly due to an issue in the Jumping Cell detection
and improvement algorithm. This issue has been corrected.

Opening a VGD file that uses levels greater than Maximum Division Level specified under
EditPreferencesAdvanced, could result in a program crash during certain user
operations. Such a situation is now properly handled.

After saving the mesh in the VGD file with Convert Cartesian Cells to Polyhedral Cells or
Optimized for Disk Space Consumption options, in certain cases, reopening and using this
VGD file could result in a program crash during certain operations. This issue has been
corrected.

The Auto Meshing Unmarked Domains option (under the Advanced tab in the Generate
Mesh dialog) would not work correctly when a Cylinder Bounding Box was used. This issue
has been corrected.

In certain cases, imported Parasolid files would be incorrectly oriented. This issue has been
corrected.

An issue related to boundary layer growth at the junction of a bounding box patch (where BL
is disabled) and an adjoining patch (where BL is enabled) has been corrected.

An issue related to the naming of automatically detected marker domains has been corrected.

ACE+ Suite V2013.2

Release Notes

33

ACE+ V2013.0

CFD-ACE+
The V2013.0 Patch3 Release included corrections for the following software issues.

Solver
o

For Heat and Radiation cases, improper account of heat fluxes resulted in an
incorrect (high) energy imbalance, while the solution was correct. This issue has been
corrected and the energy balance is properly calculated and reported.

An error was corrected in the Least-Squares gradient evaluation procedure for

electro-statics computations. The error caused the gradient in cells that had a single
face neighbor (which are usually encountered only in the corners of 2-D domains with
triangular meshes) to become undefined.

Using the Monte Carlo Radiation model would produce "Input Error: Incorrect ncuts"
warning messages (in the command line output) and the solution would likely be
incorrect. This issue has been corrected.

For a limited number of transient cases, where a very specific sequence of steps
were followed during problem setup, transient DTF files would be output only at the
th
0 and final timesteps, regardless of the output frequency specified. This issue has
been corrected.

For Spray boundary injector, the Normal Random Velocity option would give identical
velocities for all parcels. This issue has been corrected and now velocity values are
random.

The Solver would crash for certain cases involving the Momentum Resistance model.
This issue has been corrected.

For Stress simulations, the CFD-ACE-GUI "Dump Script" option would not dump the
python scripting functions corresponding to the Critical Damping Parameters
(MOStress). This issue has been corrected.

GUI

CFD-CADalyzer
The V2013.0 Patch3 Release included corrections for the following software issues.

When using CFD-CADalyzer on a system with an Intel integrated graphics driver, problems
selecting surfaces and volumes would be encountered. This issue has been corrected.

CFD-VIEW
The V2013.0 Patch3 Release included corrections for the following software issues.

On disabling hardware acceleration on MS-Windows systems, CFD-VIEW graphical display

performance would be poor including flickering and flashing of the screen. This issue has
been corrected.

SimManager
The V2013.0 Patch3 Release included corrections for the following software issues.

34

SimManager would crash on running parametric or optimization studies with CFD-GEOM

scripts on Linux machines. This issue has been corrected.

Release Notes

ACE+ Suite V2013.2