flow-simulator

Altair® Flow Simulator™

Integrated Thermo-fluid System Design

Flow Simulator is a 3D design tool that provides interdisciplinary modeling and optimization for fluid and thermal systems within a CAD-integrated environment.

System-level design has become increasingly critical as organizations are tasked with simulating complex duty cycles. Fast software solutions like Flow Simulator are needed to model an entire system, including rapid iteration concept modeling and understanding of system simulation and system behavior in applications such as rotating machinery design, electromobility, wind turbines, heat exchangers, and virtually anything that encompasses thermal management.

Flow Simulator was originally developed by GE Aviation to serve as a fast flow network simulator for aircraft engines – simulating how an entire flight cycle would behave in the real world, from runway and take off to flight and landing. Since its inception, it has been used to simplify modeling for a variety of complex thermal systems applications, including healthcare, locomotives, and renewable energy.

Flow Simulator Overview Video

Why Flow Simulator?

Efficient Development of Turbomachinery Engines

The easy-to-use GUI and thoroughly validated element library that leverage domain knowledge originated from GE increase team productivity leading to faster product development.

Integrated Thermo-fluid System Design Studies

The software enables engineers to apply a multi-disciplinary, multiphysics and mixed-fidelity approach from modeling to post-processing without ever leaving their familiar environment.

Accurate Flow and Thermal Network Modeling

Through the flexible modeling environment supporting several analysis types, users can quickly and accurately evaluate design alternatives and product variants.

Key Features

Fully Coupled Flow and Thermal Network Modeling

An extended library of preconfigured elements and components leveraging a large set of publicly available experimental data for pressure drop and heat transfer characteristics is fully coupled to the thermal and heat transfer solver for steady-state and transient analyses.

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Intuitive Interface

A modern interface for pre, post, solve, and optimization. The three-dimensional design environment gives users the ability to overlay/integrate the network model with 3D computer-aided design (CAD) while integrating a customer’s IP and element formulations seamlessly.

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Control System Module

Proportional integral derivative (PID) controllers, feedforward, and missions can be integrated with flow/heat transfer models to optimize the simulated-machine operation during cycle/mission analysis.

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Optimization Module

Monte Carlo, Optimal Latin Hypercube, and N-factorial analyses quickly explore the entire 3D design space. An analytical model can be parametrized based on flow configuration, shape, dimension, and thermal characteristics to achieve an optimal cost-benefit design.

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User-defined Elements

Ability to integrate a customer’s own IP and element formulations using UDE creator supported in flexible python scripting as well as with Fortran language. APIs are provided an option to connect Flow Simulator with external software for multidisciplinary analyses.

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Turbomachinery, Energy, and Mobility Applications

Flow Simulator can be used to design and optimize turbine engine systems, energy applications such as power plan piping and electrical generator cooling, as well as thermal management for power and HVAC systems in mobility applications.

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