Process

In order to successfully perform CFD simulations a range of tools exceeding the mere CFD
software is needed. MANTIUMCAE offers process consulting to establish CFD tool chains.
A complete tool chain consists of CAD clean up software, a volume mesher, a CFD solver
and a post-processing software. In addition optimization software helps to get the best out of
your products. Choosing the tools can be very difficult as the amount of choices seems to be
limitless. MANTIUMCAE has the experience using the necessary tools including commercial
and open source options for every step of the CFD process. If you are looking forward to
improve or establish CFD capabilities within your organization we can help to analyze your
needs and recommend the best solution. This could be a complete commercial, a complete
open source or a hybrid approach.

MantiumCAE manta as a CAD model, first part of the process

The first step in most CFD simulations is creating and preparing CAD geometry. CAD cleanup is often a very time consuming task. The tools used and recommended by MANTIUMCAE minimize the efforts that have to be taken here.

MantiumCAE manta discretized, ready to be exported to *.stl, second part of the process

For the surface discretization MANTIUMCAE recommends using the built-in capabilities of XFlow or the industry standard Ansa. If open source is preferred, we can assist in finding an approach using software like FreeCAD, Blender and a set of scripts developed at MANTIUMCAE.

3D volume mesh containing the MantiumCAE manta, third part of the process

At MANTIUMCAE the meshers of choice are the internal XFlow solution for LBM, while for Navier-Stokes simulations, snappyHexMesh is preferred. The first option will not subject any user to bigger difficulties. The later requires a lot of fine tuning to create good CFD meshes. MANTIUMCAE can provide the knowledge needed to adapt a snappyHexMesh-workflow to most types ofapplications.

Forces over time plot, fourth part of the process

For solving MANTIUMCAE recommends XFlow as a commercial CFD code. XFlow offers special benefits when it comes to running very complex simulations including multiphase and moving geometry problems. Recommended open source solvers are OpenFOAM® and SU2.

3D CFD results of the MantiumCAE manta, final part of the process

CFD would be nothing without nice pictures. While extracting hard numbers is important to compare design iterations and benchmark them, the pictures help to gain a deep understanding about why certain designs are better than others. XFlow already ships with excellent post-processing capabilities, enabling users to create publication-ready and professional visualizations In addition it allows exporting to Ensight and ParaView. These also allow post-processing of OpenFOAM® and SU2 results.

Not only as a reseller but also as a user of XFlow, MANTIUMCAE recommends XFlow as an excellent CFD
solution. More information on why that is can be found here and here. For the process aspect it is clear that
XFlow is an all-out-of-the-box CFD solution which makes many things very easy. MANTIUMCAE is just as
happy to help establish complete open source workflows if requested. Often though, a hybrid approach is
more realistic as it is almost impossible to work without Ansa when using OpenFOAM® or SU2.

 

This offering is not approved or endorsed by OpenCFD Limited, the producer of the OpenFOAM software and owner of the OPENFOAM®  and OpenCFD®  trade marks.

SU2 is under active development in the Aerospace Design Lab in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University and has been released under an open-source license.

ANSA is a BETA CAE Systems S.A. product.

XFlow is by NextLimit

CEI Inc., are the makers of EnSight.

Paraview is developed at Sandia Corporation, Kitware Inc.