FLUENT for CATIA V5 Features

As leading providers of CFD and PLM solutions, respectively, ANSYS, Inc. and Dassault Systèmes have worked together to bring you FLUENT for CATIA V5 technology. As a partner in the Dassault Systèmes´ Software Community Program, ANSYS is uniquely positioned to provide its leading flow modeling technology within the V5 PLM environment. The ANSYS and Dassault Systèmes collective objective is to enable PLM companies to optimize product performance early in the design cycle. FLUENT for CATIA V5 software accomplishes this vision by providing you with the best integration of CFD into PLM in the industry.

» FLUENT for CATIA V5 5.0 Brochure (PDF)

Learn more about:

• PLM Integration
• Rapid Flow Modeling
• Upward Compatibility
• New Features in FLUENT for CATIA V5 5.0

PLM Integration

FLUENT for CATIA V5 software protects your PLM investments. FLUENT for CATIA V5 technology is based on Dassault Systèmes' open SIMULIA scientific platform and the underlying CAA V5 architecture. ANSYS has created a fully PLM-integrated CFD solution that reveals the effects of fluid dynamics during product design. FLUENT for CATIA V5 technology is more than CFD embedded into CAD: it is CFD absorbed into the PLM bloodstream of the world's leading manufacturing companies. FLUENT for CATIA V5 technology ensures that your company makes the most of its PLM investments.

In addition to knowledge and data management capabilities, PLM companies need fully generative relationships between the design of their manufacturing-ready geometric models and their mathematical simulation models, which include structural, thermal, and CFD analysis. Simply having the CFD model show up in the same graphics window as the CAD model is not enough. The CFD data has to fully reside in the PLM software's data management system. Only then can engineers rapidly turn their CAD models into flow models, and perform the comprehensive knowledge-based optimization studies needed to develop the best products in the shortest time. It is FLUENT for CATIA V5 technology that makes this possible.

Rapid Flow Modeling

Rapid flow modeling is an approach to CFD simulation aimed at reducing overall time and increasing efficiency. It allows for quick engineering design validation throughout the product lifecycle. FLUENT for CATIA V5 software embraces the high level of automation that is the key to successful rapid flow modeling. Tasks that often require a lot of manual intervention, such as meshing, solution steering, and reporting, are fully automated.

FLUENT for CATIA V5 technology provides fast, automated tools to extract a flow volume from the solid parts, an otherwise tedious step that is often overlooked in other software. The automated meshing logic cuts the time it takes engineers to create high-quality computational meshes from days to minutes. Specify the physics, and the FLUENT for CATIA V5 software will perform the simulation automatically without a need for the user to monitor the calculation. Comprehensive reports are generated automatically.

Our rapid flow modeling technology dramatically cuts the engineering time required to perform a CFD analysis. Engineers can do more and better analyses faster. The result is a better product design in a shorter time.

Upward Compatibility

FLUENT for CATIA V5 software generates files that are 100% compatible with our CFD software FLUENT. This capability allows you to move back and forth easily between FLUENT for CATIA V5 software and the extensive physics modeling capabilities provided by FLUENT technology. It also allows for exchanging analysis between the CATIA users in your company and the FLUENT users, improving team collaboration.

New Features in FLUENT for CATIA V5 5.0

The Volume of Fluid (VOF) model has been introduced in FLUENT for CATIA V5 5.0. The VOF model is very useful for modeling two-phase flows with a long free surface. This model is useful for applications where two different fluids, typically a gas and a liquid are interacting with each other. These include fuel cells, ship and boat hydrodynamics, water pumps and fuel tanks.

FLUENT for CATIA V5 5.0 has many additional features and enhancements. Key enhancements include more robust flow volume creation, user defined coloring of inlets and outlets, total heat flux specification for walls, periodic specification icon for periodic boundary conditions and appropriate error messages when meshing volumes using the Tgrid filler.  Several enhancements have been made for large model handling, such as consistent numbering and highlighting of solid and fluid sides of walls. For problems involving mapping of pressure or temperature data to FEA models for Fluid Structure Interaction, it is now possible to select geometric features from the viewer or solid features from the specification tree as supports.

Several changes have been made to the post-processing capabilities. The icon groups have been reorganized and new capabilities have been added. A new icon group has been added for vector plots and the post-processing icons for contour, vector and pathline plots have been grouped together to make them more compact and accessible. It is now possible to create cut-planes easily to create slices through 3-D geometry for plotting. Turbulence at walls can be plotted using the additional y+ quantity. 

For HTML reporting, plots made on the full geometry created using Image Transformation will be included, and the total power due to torque will be reported for rotating walls. Plotting and reporting capabilities have been added for the VOF model. It is now possible to use CFD-Post as the external post-processor, allowing the creation of sophisticated plots and reports for both steady state and transient data.

Solution initialization will now allow users to initialize from a boundary and to specify a liquid height for open channel flows. It is now possible to run a calculation without any convergence criteria. Finally FLUENT for CATIA V5 5.0 has upgraded to the latest version of the FLUENT solver, ANSYS FLUENT 12.0.

These new features and enhancements allow users to model new applications, improve process efficiency, allow better post-processing of results and access to the latest solver and post-processor from ANSYS. Explore the new features and benefits of FLUENT for CATIA V5 5.0:

Geometry and Meshing

• Boundaries such as inlets and outlets are rendered with user defined colors to indicate their location.
• When two volumes meet at an edge without a shared face, user can control the radius of the sweep generated during flow volume creation.
• Geometrical faces can be selected from the viewer or solid features from the specification tree (e.g., sew surfaces) as a support for creating mapped pressure or temperature while using fluid- structure interaction (FSI).
• Appropriate error messages will be displayed when the TGrid mesher used for volume meshing and boundary layer creation runs out of memory or if it cannot create the specified number of prism layers.

Properties

• Fluid and solid properties icons have been removed since fluid properties can be converted as solid properties and vice versa.
• When flow volumes are changed or their mesh settings are modified, properties will be numbered consistently. For example, Flow.1 under Nodes and Elements will correspond to Property.1 and Material.1.
• A toggle button has been introduced for specifying heat generation for both fluid and solid properties.
• The terminology for showing walls between solid and fluid regions has been modified to make it clearer.
• The unit for molecular weight is now specified in the materials dialog box.

Boundary Conditions

• For uncoupled walls, the corresponding region and property will be highlighted when the wall is selected.
• The total heat flux can now be specified as a heat transfer condition for wall boundaries.
• Species concentration can be specified in boundary conditions for any wall.
• When a boundary condition is created, the corresponding values for flow and heat transfer will be shown in the specifications tree.
• A periodic specification icon has been created to specify periodic boundary conditions.
• Several changes have been made for the VOF model. They are as follows:
  • Inlet and outlet boundary conditions can be specified for each phase.
  • For open channel flows, the top and bottom levels of the liquid phase can be specified.
  • Wall boundary conditions will include options for adhesion and contact angle.

Physics and Solver

• The FLUENT solver has been updated to FLUENT 12.0, which is the current release of ANSYS FLUENT 12.0.
• The Volume of Fluid (VOF) model has been implemented to calculate two-phase ows with free surfaces.
  • The VOF model can be speci_ed in the Physics Model De_nition dialog box, in the same way as cavitation.
  • A VOF icon is created in the speci_cations tree, which is used to specify the settings.
    • Both implicit and explicit algorithms, with corresponding interpolation schemes, can be chosen to compute free surface location.
    • Open channel ows in the presence of gravity can be speci_ed.
  • The following changes have been made for computation and initialization:
    • The convergence criteria can be set to none, i.e. the computation will be without any convergence checks being performed.
    • An existing boundary support can be chosen to initialize from, i.e. the values for the variables will be taken from the boundary conditions for the chosen boundary support.
    •  For open channel ows, a at liquid height can be speci_ed during initialization.
• When Continue Computation is used to continue an existing run with no major changes or no modification, the Fluent case generated during the previous run is used to restart computation.

Postprocessing

• The postprocessing icons have been reorganized to make them more easy to work with. Now, contour, vector, and pathline plots for all variables are grouped together and represented
  by one common icon.
• An icon group has been added to create vector plots.
• An additional quantity useful for turbulence at a wall, y+, has been added in the Common Images toolbar.
• Volume fraction images for VOF calculations can be created.
• A new functionality has been added to create static cut planes for plotting on cross-section slices.
• ANSYS CFD-Post can now be used as an external postprocessor, allowing users to work with a modern powerful CFD post-processor for transient and VOF cases.
• The external postprocessor icons have been modified to accommodate the additional capabilities for ANSYS CFD-Post.
• When Image Transformation is used to create full geometry from symmetric or periodic sections for postprocessing, the corresponding image is incorporated into the HTML report.
• The HTML report will report quantities and plots for the VOF model.
• The HTML report will include power at rotating walls (torque x angular velocity) in Watts.