cfd

cfd / foss / open source — View Comments
4
Oct 09

Where does "open source" fit in the CAE space?

As the market sits today, unfortunately, I don’t see an immediate fit for free open source software (FOSS) having a huge impact on the CAE market. It could have some, but not huge. I think the reasons are due to the shear size of the market, complexity of the software, size of the developer community and the accountability of the developed code. Big claims, so let me provide a bit more.

The size of the CAE market is on the size of 10s of thousands to 100s of thousands at the absolute most. The size of those that actually have the time/skills to actively develop is a few % of that. Plus, the culture and expectations of the user community is one of dependence on the commercial vendors to handle everything. There hasn’t been an outcry by the user community to provide “the source” or allow access to the internals. In fact, the outcry is usually the exact opposite. The expectations from the user community are immensely high in that they want to adopt a new way of product development (ie simulation), but.. they expect it…

  1. To be super simple to use and implement
  2. Extremely accurate with minimal user input
  3. Reasonably priced
  4. Fantastic support
Surely not claiming that the shear size and complexity of CAE software is the barrier to a FOSS model. I am claiming that the size of the market and the early stages of mass adoption are the limiting factors right now. There is simply not enough demand and resources out there to really make it work across the board.

The CAE space is very competitive and many people still view it as “nice to have”. Until it is mainstream and on the critical path, it will be difficult to see a vendor making the big leap into the wide open world of FOSS.

I am a big fan of the FOSS model in mass adopted applications – firefox, thunderbird, ubuntu, banshee etc… Would love to hear an argument how to take a very competitive, “niche” product like FEA or CFD and make a business model that can survive as FOSS.

Would love to hear alternative arguments to this.

cfd — View Comments
9
Sep 09

Are you maximizing your CFD investment?

Something I have been passionate about for the last 12 years or so is helping companies implement CFD into their development environment. Easy, right? I have come to accept that some people get it and others really struggle.The guys that get it are a blast to work with as they want to be successful and are open to change.

The guys that struggle can be a challenge, but can be some of the most rewarding folks to work with. Not much better than watching folks evolve and grasp a new technology that will turbo boost them past their competitors.

I have spoken to countless engineers all over the world that have a bad feeling about CFD. They either struggled in the past, don’t feel up to it or are being restricted by management to embrace it properly.

Check out my buddy, Jeff’s spot on blog post on embracing the business impact of CFD simulation. If you read this and are still a skeptic, that’s cool. Stick to physical testing and hang tight as your competition evolves and leaves you behind.

cae / cfd / cloud / saas — View Comments
19
Jun 09

CAE in the Clouds

Constant buzz about this topic. Tons of speculation on where its going, pretty sure no one knows where it will end up. But I think its clear to many that the options are endless. A recent blog post, by Devon Sowell indicates that SolidWorks is getting into the game. To what extent, only time will tell. I was a bit surprised to hear that they are looking at CAD as SaaS, at least in the traditional sense.

I tend to mix cloud computing and SaaS as one in the same. But really, I see SaaS as the business side of things – how you access and pay for the software application. Cloud computing is a bit more general and simply means (to me) leveraging the web and hosted servers/sites to perform what you do (or wish you could do) locally today.

There are so many avenues that this can take on the CAD side. I suspect that as bandwidth is increasing, we can imagine that you will be able to interact, edit and create 3D models over the web. But, I am not sure from a user’s experience this is in the near future. Tons of things have to be accounted for including RAM, video performance and overall processing power for complex CAD operations. Plus, one of the selling points of SaaS is to use it on demand, “when” you need it. This has a very part-time, occasional feeling about it. Even though CAD is easier to use now than ever before, its not word processing, so there will be a need for proficiency.

But, as we know, there are many facets to the CAD world. To me, the first logical step is data collaboration – files in the sky, on demand access from anywhere that can be viewed, mocked up and shared. Reducing the need for ftp, email and time draining “quick” design reviews. PTC is just dipping their toe in the water with their Social Product Development effort. So imagine you are collaborating with another site or a vendor or a supplier and you can all have access to the exact same CAD data on demand. You can collaborate on the spot or leave text or even video messages for each other so that time zones become less and less of a burden. This access needs to be anywhere, from any device. All the data – 2d drawings, FEA/CFD results, testing data, specs, BOMS -everything must be a click away. Some might be thinking, doesn’t this already exist in PLM?? To a point, but it is still not mainstream enough to roll out to everyone. Once this is accomplished, then I think we will see the true power of cloud computing on this sector of the industry.

The next and more true to my heart is on the computation/simulation side of the world. FEA/CFD is becoming more and more mainstream. Sizes of models is increasing daily as well as the complexity of the physics being solved. This growth will not slow down and will always be bottle necked by the computing resources available. Many have tried and have been marginally successful in providing “on demand computing”. This will continue to be a theme from the simulation folks. So you can imagine that you may run CFD from time to time, but really don’t want to maintain the computing power needed. You may run conceptual models locally and leave the big jobs to the cloud. No doubt we will see more and more of this. But how we interact with this environment is key.

If I sit at my desk and setup a model and then submit all the files etc needed to run the simulation to some server in the sky, this will take time. I also will want to interact with these models in some form or another. At a minimum, I want to know the progress, check quickly if things are moving along nicely, check preliminary results and a whole list of little subtle things that I check when running locally. The beauty of a cloud model is that I want to check that from anywhere at anytime. Might seem silly, but be nice if I had an iphone app that allowed me to see what jobs I had running and have a little dashboard that is customizable to look at certain things that “I” want to look at for all my models. Maybe I’m not an iphone guy and I simply want a text message or instant message when the model is finished. Maybe I am not a mobile device guy at all and simply want to “login” on my wife’s home computer to see how things are going. To many this might be a foreign concept and many others are probably nodding their heads because they are feeling the pain.

I am closer to the simulation folks, so I could go on for days about the potential of SaaS/cloud in this space. I am interested in hearing from true CAD folks that are struggling everyday. Where can the cloud help you?

cfd / cfdesign / inventor / upfront cfd — View Comments
30
Mar 09

Inventor 2010 & CFdesign rocks

Everyone in the world blogged and posted about this a few weeks ago. I have been burning at both ends and neglecting the old blog. But figured it was worth a quick me too post. Check out the video below, it highlights some of the coolness.

Exciting to see our friends at Autodesk, jumping full bore into the simulation world. They are doing what thet do- taking tactful, well thought out implementation of the technology. Some might say a bit slow, some might say just fast enough. They have a dedicated audience of fanatical customers that can truly use some of the FEA capabilities coming from the Plassotech acquisition and expand out into the Mechanical Event Simulation stuff in Algor.

Personally, we have seen a huge interest from the Inventor community in flow and thermal simulation. The future for the Autodesk community looks bright, lots of cool stuff. Looking forward to the day when I am running flow simulations in CFdesign while sculpting my Inventor models with some of the Alias technology and morphing and pulling with Fusion. This day is not too far in the future

cfd / cfdesign / earth day / upfront cfd — View Comments
22
Apr 08

Everyday is Earth Day

Today is Earth Day. It has been an annual event to promote awareness and appreciation of the Earth’s environment. I remember attending a festival ~15 years ago and it mainly consisted of hippy environmentalists. Today it is becoming a part of everyone’s responsibility to do their part.

We as consumers are encouraged to be conscious of the energy we consume, the trash we create and the products we buy. It is amazing how easy it can be if we just take a minute to think about it. We can all adjust the thermostat, recycle what we can and turn out lights that are not being used. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

We as engineers have a responsbility to do what we can to help expand the technology to make the world a bit greener. We in the simulation world are seeing a surge in optimizing products to help the cause.

I am looking forward to doing my part. I am also looking forward to seeing the technology that evolves in an effort to help improve the environment.

autodesk / cfd / downhole / drilling / otc / tricone bit / upfront cfd — View Comments
15
Apr 08

Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) is around the corner

We have had quite a bit of success helping folks in the Oil & Gas Industry design better products. It is interesting that 95% of what they do involves fluid flow and some thermal, yet doing CFD early in the design phase is relatively new to them. Quite similar story in many industries, actually. But this all changing for the better. Check out the video below (has audio too…).

We will be at OTC this year. For some this may be near and dear to you, others – probably not. OTC is the world’s foremost event for the development of offshore resources in the fields of drilling, exploration, production and environmental protection. With more than 2,500 exhibiting companies, divisions, and subsidiaries, the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) is the largest conference and exhibition in the offshore industry. It is being held at the Reliant Center in Houston, TX on May 5-8th, 2008. We are sharing booth #5763 with our friends at Autodesk.
cfd / coffee pots / consumer products / dryer / faucet / heater / mobile phone / overn / refrigerator / shower / upfront / upfront cfd / washer / xm player — View Comments
12
Apr 08

Upfront CFD for Consumer Products: A Wake-Up Call

The more I do an unofficial market analysis, the more I think the potential for Upfront CFD is endless. There are all of the obvious applications for fluid flow and thermal simulation, but I find that often engineers do not even realize that they are having issues.

I was at an event a few years ago manning our booth. People were stopping by to see what all of the buzz was about. I gave him my 30 second pitch to what we do. I then said, “so do you have any flow or thermal issues?” He gave me the standard shrug and said, “no, not really. I don’t see any application for us.” Forever being stubborn, I said, “what does your company make?”. “Vacuum cleaners!”, he responded proudly. It was a defining moment for me. It is not in his mind-set to identify with “flow & thermal issues”. It is my job to ask, “what are your design challenges?” Once I asked this question, the flood gates opened and they are now a great customer.


I tell people that the applications for Upfront CFD are endless. I woke up this morning and within a few minutes, I identified 15 applications. My mobile phone alarm buzzed early this am. As I rolled out of bed, I heard the roar of a public transportation bus (valves, hvac, hoses, radiators, electronics, hydraulics) outside my window. I walked into the bathroom, turned on the faucet, looked in the mirror and saw the washer and dryer in the corner, debated about a shower and went downstairs. I clicked on my XM radio player, walked into the kitchen for some coffee and noticed the refrigerator, coffee pot, blender, oven, microwave etc. Strapped on my shoes and ipod to walk the dogs as I heard the heater kick on. Oh yeah, I forgot to check my email on the laptop. Point is begin to think about devices and products and and ask yourself is there a fluid flowing in or around it or does it need to heat up or cool down? If so, you can probably optimize the design using Upfront CFD.

The above images are only a small percentage of the 1000s of applications out there in the world. CFD has been around for along time, but has really been used predominantly by specialists. Often people in the Consumer Product world, thought CFD was too complicated or was over-kill for their needs. Times have changed — go see for yourself.

cfd / cfdesign / pressure drop / recirculation / upfront / upfront cfd / valves — View Comments
22
Mar 08

Upfront CFD is Much More than Just a Pressure Drop

One of the major benefits of my job is visiting companies all over the world from various industries. Although I am excited about our product and services, my favorite part of the meeting is when I am granted a tour of their facility. It never gets old to walk around and get a view of the inner workings of a prospective customer. It’s like being a kid in a candy shop. Fellow engineers are super proud of what they do and get really excited showing off their designs. I get to ask a 1000 questions and learn a great deal about the challenges that companies face. The challenges are all very similar from a fluid flow and heat transfer perspective, even though the industries are quite different.

We typically get back to the conference room and now its our turn to show off how we can help their business. I love showing off our software. It is super visual and we can create really cool images that show some valuable insight that is impossible to capture in a test facility. The audience is almost always super receptive to the demo and usually have some really interesting questions. So, we go through and  show all of the various ways to understand the fluid flow and thermal characteristics of a representative model.

After a round of high-fives (not really), we get down to business and discuss how to move forward and implement Upfront CFD into their current process. A common question I ask is, "if you had an Upfront CFD tool right now, what is the first thing that you would want to simulate?" More often than not, a common response is, "we have this new design and we would love to know the pressure drop (deltaP)". This is usually followed by an awkward silent pause. Hmm…all the cool stuff that I just showed and you want a deltaP. I think it has to do with a certain comfort level. The deltaP is a common thing they get from physical testing, so they can relate to that value. We can absolutely provide an accurate pressure drop on your device. 

But once you determine the deltaP, then what? There seems to be a disconnect between the fluid flow characteristics and the pressure drop. But in fact, these two are obviously dependent on one another. If you optimize the flow characteristics, you can optimize the pressure drop. So, what does that mean? If you eliminate recirculation regions, reduce separation points and control the impingement regions, you can reduce the pressure drop. How can you do this with physical testing alone? Once you compute the pressure drop, how do you know what to change?

Proof is in the pudding -let’s look at an example. We’ll keep it simple.

 

CAD

We take the model directly into CFdesign and apply "what we know", let the software automate the rest and click GO! Let’s see how we can optimize the design.

cfd1

iso

cut1

Okay, so I am have a great time with Snag-It. But the point is that Upfront CFD gives you so much more insight to your designs than just a pressure drop value. The key to Upfront CFD is that you get the Pressure drop value, but more importantly you are now in a position to improve the design based on the knowledge that you have gained. Upfront CFD allows you to innovate, testing is there to validate. Based on what we have learned above, we need to reduce the pressure drop and attempt to "even out" the flow field in the area of the valve stem. The original design had 4 cut-outs, "what-if" we increased that to 8, 12, 16 – even 24? Let’s make the change and find out.

design2

But what impact does the 24-slot design have on the overall Pressure Drop? Let’s compare.

dp

We can plot the pressure drop and make an apples to apples comparison. We see that the final design satisfies all of our criteria. We were able to reduce the force on the valve, ensure that the flow is uniform in the vicinity of the valve stem and reduce the overall pressure drop of my system. I was able to do this in the course of a couple hours today. I ran 5 different "what-if" scenarios and compare. Upfront CFD not only gave me my pressure drop, but it allowed me to see from every angle what impact my design change was having on the performance.

cae / cfd / cfdesign / germany / upfront / upfront cfd — View Comments
11
Mar 08

Big Moutains to Climb in Germany

I just returned from a trip to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. It is about an hour outside of Munich. Great little ski town. They take great pride in the fact that they were the host of the 1936 Olympics. Seems like along time ago to me, but nonetheless, they are proud.

I spent most of the time in meetings, but was fortunate enough to walk around for a bit. We also had some fantastic Bavarian meals in some of the authentic restaurants in town. I also snapped a few pics. Check out the image below. I was in awe of the shear size of the moutains. Sure, we have the Rockies in the US, but they seemed small in comparison. I found it interesting that some of the people in our meetings shared the same sentiment about the moutains, others seemed mildly impressed. I guess it all depends on what you are used to?

It is great to have the opportunity to meet German companies and understand their processes and challenges. They do business slightly different and definitely take great pride in their engineering. But many German engineers relate to the benefits of Upfront simulation. It is exciting to show people how to approach fluid flow and thermal challenges in an Upfront way. I am looking forward to my next trip to learn even more about this fascinating place.

cfd / cfdesign / implementation / technology transfer / upfront / upfront cfd — View Comments
9
Mar 08

You Must be Committed to Implementing Upfront CFD

We in the vendor world are committed to our products and services. We take great pride in our capabilities and we strive to provide first class support and training to ensure that our users are successful. Let’s face it, a major part of our day is focused on ensuring that our customers are gaining a return on their investment. I take full responsibility on transferring the knowledge it takes to implement Upfront CFD into your current process.

So, if we assume that all vendors have a similar passion in their products and services, why do so many engineers have so many CAE products sitting on their shelves? I live by the statement, that “the customer is always right”. But I do expect that the customer is willing to first identify a problem and be open to working together to formulate an implementation plan, but most importantly, the customer has to be committed to the implementation of the plan. Seems like a simple concept, right?

It has been my experience that the customer and vendor have to have a solid relationship and absolutely have to be on the same page regarding the implementation. This is where selecting the correct vendor is essential. Ease of use and the laundry list of features are a given. But as you shop around, you will quickly see that everyone will claim to have essentially the same “laundry list”.

What you need to ask yourself, “do I have confidence in the team that I am about to partner with”? Do they have the support infrastructure to help me when I am stuck? Do they understand my business? Do they understand my problem? But most importantly, do they know how to teach me to solve my problem?

Being committed to the implementation is your job. Formulating a clear implementation plan that teaches you to solve problems with our tool is our job. Don’t be afraid to ask the tough questions. Whether or not a vendor can match your test data is really irrelevant. Given the correct inputs, every vendor will stick their “Ace” user on it and present really fancy images. The real question is how will the vendor transfer the knowledge to you the user so that you can seamlessly begin solving problems?
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