Upfront CFD Buyer’s Guide

Published By:
Blue Ridge Numerics, Inc.
Copyright © 2010, All rights reserved.
The Emergence of Digital Flow and Thermal Prototyping

The computer-based simulation of fluid and thermal dynamics is commonly referred to

as Computational Fluid Dynamics or CFD. This technology has more than 40 years of
history in the realms of academic research, corporate R&D, and general engineering.

Traditionally CFD is used by an engineering specialist, someone that has deep subject
matter expertise and serves as an internal resource for the product development
organization. In this arrangement the CFD specialist replicates the duties of the physical
lab manager but uses a digital tool set. They take the model from engineering, convert it
to a simplified, representative prototype, run the analysis and report the findings. The
process is both labor and time intensive so it is often reserved for reliability engineering,
i.e. finding out why the design failed in the physical test.

P&G’s Tom Lange calls this “pathology work” and considers it the low end of potential
for virtual study. “Reliability engineering makes broken systems work faster, rather than
designing optimal systems from the beginning.”

This misaligned application of digital prototyping is focused on efficiency during crisis

situations not the greater mission of effectiveness. Best in class companies seek a
different, higher value return on their investments. As a result they are adopting CFD and
other digital simulation tools developed specifically for proactive engineering or upfront
design optimization.

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Copyright © 2010 Blue Ridge Numerics, Inc. All rights reserved.
Requirements for Effective Digital Flow and
Thermal Prototyping

Best in class companies have shown a willingness to adopt new technologies if it serves their
mission: giving their customers more of what they want. In the case of fluid flow and heat
transfer simulation, this means integration within the design engineering process.

By creating a collaborative, digital design study environment more knowledge is gained and
applied when the cost of change is lowest, translating into a more robust, innovative design
that maximizes revenue and profitability through the entire product lifecycle.

Practically speaking for most organizations, effective digital flow and thermal prototyping
requires CFD to function in concert with a 3D CAD system to enable the digital testing of
numerous scenarios as part of an interactive design study. This category of technology is
commonly referred to as upfront CFD.

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Copyright © 2010 Blue Ridge Numerics, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Enablers of Upfront CFD

CAD-driven Process: The design environment for best in class companies is 3D CAD and CAD-driven simulation
there are many advantages to extending this environment for simulation. It’s important to
note that this doesn’t imply all simulation must be done within, or embedded in, the CAD maximizes the value of
interface.
CAD data while supplying
Limitations of CAD-embedded simulation
1. The CAD interface often lacks the visualization, design study, and decision-making
an environment optimized
tools necessary for simulation users to achieve project goals and organizational for design study and
effectiveness.
decision-making.
2. The CAD interface actually limits the number and pace of functionality
and innovation available to simulation users.

No matter what interface the CFD solution uses it is important to confirm it leverages
the native geometric model plus the relevant engineering information associated with
the
model.
- Leverage native geometric model
- Use and protect the relevant engineering information associated with the CAD model
- User interface, mouse commands, and workflow should mimic or emulate those
in CAD

Making design decisions

from 3D simulation data
requires a flexible, interactive
design study environment

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Copyright © 2010 Blue Ridge Numerics, Inc. All rights reserved.
Design Study Environment: CFD supplies much more design performance data than
physical testing; instead of data from a few probes, data is available at every conceivable
location. More importantly, this data can be produced for dozens of 3D design scenarios.

Without a well constructed design study environment in which to visualize this mountain
of simulation data organizational effectiveness is more likely to be hindered than helped.

Built-in Intelligence: Shifting fluid flow and heat transfer simulation from the CFD guru to
the design engineer requires much of the know-how possessed by the guru to be supplied
to the design engineer in the form of built-in intelligence, i.e. the software automates many
of the decisions and tasks related to the CFD process, leaving the engineer to focus on de-
sign performance and its optimization.

Decision and Task Automation Checklist:

• Flow volume creation – CFD simulations require a representation for all the physical
space within or around the CAD assembly. This is done via a Boolean extraction from
the CAD model to represent it and is referred to as the flow region in the simulation;
this procedure can become a real bottleneck for design engineers unless it is fully
automated.

• Mesh generation – all forms of simulation require the geometric model to be broken
down into discrete sections (i.e. mesh elements) so the flow and thermal dynamics in
that area can be accurately calculated. Realistically, if engineers are asked to accept
ownership for this prerequisite the use of simulation is often abandoned. For this
reason the meshing task must be fully automated. CFD packages using the Finite
Element Method tend to provide the highest level of meshing automation.

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Copyright © 2010 Blue Ridge Numerics, Inc. All rights reserved.
• Mesh refinement – in specific areas of the model the density of mesh elements must
be refined to ensure accurate simulations results; most design engineers simply don’t
possess the know-how for this procedure so it’s vital that upfront CFD software do it for
them.

• Solver selection – selecting solvers is the bane of mathematicians and physicists not
design engineers; every CFD package includes a wide array of solvers which may be
necessary at specific moments in the simulation process; a good upfront CFD package
fully automates this selection process and makes it invisible to the engineer.

• Solution convergence – With so many complex computations taking place how does the
user know when the simulation results are ready for review? Most engineers err on the
side of caution and run the simulation for hundreds of iterations more than is neces-
sary. Modern upfront CFD systems monitor the convergence process and notify the
engineer when results are ready.

Solution Scope: CFD is only useful if it can simulate the flow and thermal dynamics that
impact the performance of the product being designed. This requirement is often the
greatest worry among engineers but in most situations it is unwarranted. After more than
40 years of commercial development the technology has become comprehensive and quite
standardized. Within the upfront CFD category most products provide the necessary
solution scope for most engineering projects. The areas of wider discrepancy have
already been noted in the upfront CFD enablers.

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Copyright © 2010 Blue Ridge Numerics, Inc. All rights reserved.
Conclusion
If you have any questions or wish to gain
Peter Drucker maintained the best way to predict the future is to invent it. In this Internet
further info, please contact us:
age Drucker’s ideas are more relevant than ever. Technologies like digital prototyping are
a minimum requirement to achieve the agility and innovation mandated by the corporate World Headquarters
mission. Blue Ridge Numerics, Inc.
United States
For companies engineering systems or products for a flow and thermal world, +1 434 977 2764
upfront CFD opens the door to shift from efficiency to effectiveness.
United Kingdom
Blue Ridge Numerics Limited
+44 1628 501501

Germany
Blue Ridge Numerics GmbH
+49 (0) 641 4990 186

China
Blue Ridge Numerics China
Tel: +86 10 64867195

Japan
CFdesign Japan K.K.
+81-3-4530-3809

India
CFdesign Software India Pvt Ltd
+91 80 4060 0708

www.cfdesign.com

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Copyright © 2010 Blue Ridge Numerics, Inc. All rights reserved.