Click on your CAD tool below for full details on how CFdesign integrates with each package.

CATIA	NX	Solid Edge
CoCreate	Pro/ENGINEER	SolidWorks
Inventor	Revit	SpaceClaim

Key components of the Design Study Environment include:

1. Design Study Automation
The Design Study Automation suite of tools streamlines the CFdesign process and improves efficiency and analysis throughput. Several elements make up Design Study Automation. Each serves a different purpose, but all work together to provide a faster, more efficient work flow process.

2. Critical Value Decision Center
The Decision Center is a simple yet powerful environment for comparing design alternatives. Use it to compare results across a Design study to help make quality design decisions.

3. Multi-scenario Design Review Center
In traditional CAE tools, comparing results from multiple analyses can be daunting. The complexity of manually setting up the exact same view in each analysis and then comparing them side-by-side is a challenging process. Fortunately, CFdesign has pioneered a better way: the Multi-scenario Design Review Center, an engineering review on your desktop.

4. Model-Centric Interface
At the heart of the CFdesign workflow is the model-centric interface. Working close to the model throughout the design study lifecycle provides numerous benefits.

5. Customizable Material Databases
CFdesign provides a powerful system for managing collections of materials with customizable material databases. This flexibility is essential for multi-Scenario design studies which form the basis of important design decisions.

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1. Automatic Mesh Sizing
The heart of CFdesign Meshing, Automatic Mesh Sizing defines the mesh by performing a comprehensive topological interrogation of the analysis geometry and determining the mesh size and distribution on every edge, surface, and volume. Automatic Mesh Sizing considers geometric curvature, gradients, and proximity to neighboring geometry when computing all element sizes of the mesh distributions.
 
2. Local Size Adjustment
Automatic Mesh sizing creates a mesh distribution based on multiple geometric factors, and Local Size Adjustment provides a graphical way to dynamically customize the mesh as needed.

3. Geometry Mesh Diagnostics
The Diagnostics functions identify extremely thin surfaces and extremely small edges, relative to the rest of the model. In many cases, these are caused by poor CAD practices, a lack of design intent, or multiple file format conversions.

4. Boundary Layer Mesh Enhancement
Mesh Enhancement automatically adds layers of elements to the fluid mesh along all fluid-wall and fluid-solid interfaces. Mesh heights vary gradually across adjacent surfaces to ensure even transitions.

5. Mesh Refinement Regions
Local Size Adjustment is extremely useful for modifying the mesh distribution on geometric entities. If, however, energetic flow is anticipated within a region that does not contain selectable geometric entities, use a Mesh Refinement Region to focus the mesh.

6. Extrusion Meshing
Extrusion Meshing creates layers of prism elements through the length of uniform cross-section parts. Automatic Extrusion Sizing determines the growth to ensure a smooth transition between the surface mesh and extrusion layers. Based on a user-specified Growth parameter, CFdesign automatically computes the number of layers and the amount of transitional growth from one layer to the next. 

7. Volume Growth Rate
Part of the next generation of Automatic Mesh Sizing, use the Volume Growth Rate to control how much (or little) the mesh can grow in large, sparsely detailed regions. Refinement Regions are great for focusing the mesh in a particular area, but specify a Volume Mesh Growth Rate for additional control of the volume mesh throughout the entire model.

8. Automatic Surface Refinement
Part of the next generation of Automatic Mesh Sizing, Surface Refinement provides direct control over isotropic length scale variations across model surfaces. It supports explicit control over transition rates, and allows specification of the growth rate for surface meshes.

9. Gap and Thin Solid Refinement
Gaps and thin solids are a fact of life in many mechanical devices, but they can make creating a mesh more complex than it should be. This tool tackles the problem by focusing specifically on small gaps (even if they belong to different parts) as well as long, skinny solid parts.

10. Mesh generation flexibility
The model-centric workflow provides the flexibility to create the mesh when you want to, on your own terms.

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1. Finite Element Approach
The heart of CFdesign is the finite element method. The flexibility in modeling any geometric shape is unparalleled. CFdesign uses the finite element method to reduce the governing partial differential equations (PDEs) to a set of algebraic equations. The dependent variables are represented by polynomial shape functions over a small area or volume (also known as an element). These representations are substituted into the governing PDEs.

2. Results Quantities and Outputs
After the iterations are complete and the scenarios converged, results must be reviewed and questions answered. CFdesign provides a wide range of results quantities to give you the information you need to make informed design decisions.

3. Accelerant™ Solver
The Accelerant™ solver is a Krylov sparse matrix solver which employs a two level pre-conditioner.  Each pre-conditioner level is controlled by a cut-off tolerance, and is constructed during a factorization process. After completing the factorization, it is used within the iterative convergence.

4. Intelligent Solution Control
An essential element to the robustness of the CFdesign solution. By using control theory to evaluate the trends of each degree of freedom, CFdesign automatically adjusts the convergence controls and the time step size to attain a solution.

5. Automatic Convergence Assessment
Automatic Convergence Assessment removes the guess-work from knowing when a solution is complete by carefully monitoring the solution field, and automatically stopping the simulation when numerical convergence has been attained.

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Fluid Flow
Fluid flow is the study of liquids and gases moving in and around physical objects.

The number of applications is limitless, but understanding the role of flow is essential for good mechanical design. Some examples of fluid flow include the aerodynamics/lift/drag of an airplane wing, the pressure drop of water passing through a valve, and the distribution of exhaust gas through the runners of an automotive exhaust manifold.

The following list summarizes the fluid flow capabilities of the CFdesign Base configuration: 

    • Laminar 
    • Turbulent 
    • Incompressible 
    • Subsonic and Transonic 
    • Steady state 
    • 2D and 3D Cartesian 
    • 2D axisymmetric 
    • Velocity and Pressure boundary conditions 
    • Volume flow rate and Mass flow rate boundary conditions 
    • External fan curve with rotational speed and slip factor 
    • Slip/Symmetry and Unknown (natural) 
    • Spatially-periodic boundary conditions 
    • Velocity and Pressure initial conditions

Heat Transfer
Heat Transfer is the study of the movement of energy due to temperature variation.

The study of heat transfer is essential for ensuring product performance and life-cycle durability in many industries. Typical applications for CFD include predicting the temperature of electronic components in a telecommunications module, ensuring that the occupants of a crowded meeting hall are thermally comfortable, and assessing the uniformity of a temperature distribution in a manufacturing process.

The following list summarizes the heat transfer capabilities of the CFdesign Base configuration: 

    • Conduction 
    • Convection (with automatic film coefficient calculation) 
    • Forced convection (with automatic transition from flow to thermal) 
    • Natural convection (buoyancy-driven with gravity vector) 
    • Thermal Comfort calculation 
    • Conjugate heat transfer (simultaneous conduction and convection) 
    • Quick modes: Forced Convection and Natural Convection 
    • Temperature, film coefficient, and radiation boundary conditions 
    • Area-based and Total heat flux boundary conditions 
    • Volume-based and Total heat source boundary conditions 
    • Temperature-dependent heat source boundary conditions with user-defined sensing location 
    • Temperature initial conditions

Turbulence
Turbulence is a flow regime characterized by chaotic fluctuations. Most engineering flows are turbulent, and CFdesign includes a diverse set of turbulence models that cover a wide range of applications: 

    • K-epsilon 
    • Low Reynolds number K-epsilon 
    • RNG 
    • Constant eddy-viscosity 
    • Mixing Length 
    • Automatic turbulence startup (for seamless integration of turbulence into the solution) 
    • Laminar

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1. Answer System
The CFdesign Answer System is a multi-component collection of resources, designed to empower you with information quickly and easily. A powerful search tool serves as the cornerstone of the Answer System, providing lightning-fast answers to your questions from the CFdesign Help System, Knowledge Base, and CFD-Tv Help videos.

2. CFD-university
Attend self-paced Fundamentals training, Advanced Training, and Industry-specific Webinars.

3. CFdesign File Manager
Upload and share files with other users and the CFdesign Support Team.

4. Support Center
Log support cases, and view the status of existing cases.

5. CFdesign Downloads
Get the latest CFdesign updates. CFdesign is released annually each fall followed by three scheduled quarterly updates, which is unique to the CAE industry. This consistent development process assures that CFdesign remains compatible and can take advantage of the latest release of each CAD tool, Microsoft Windows, and new hardware advancements.

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