Mentor Blogs

I’ve been on the road a lot lately. Aside from attending company meetings, I’ve been out meeting our customers. This is perhaps the most enjoyable part of my job – meeting engineers who’ve been using our products to solve real-life problems. In this day and age of tight budgets, we all have learned to do a lot remotely – we send email, speak on the phone, videoconference and watch demos via webex etc. … Read More

Design Engineer, FloEFD, CFD

The CAD/CAM/CAE market has been fairly stable over the past few years – we get a merger to two every few years. But over the past couple of months we’ve seen a couple of acquisitions. While one acquisition in a quiet market is interesting, two may be the beginnings of a trend. So I thought we could look at the recent developments from the perspective of you – the end-user of technology — and how … Read More

CFD, CFdesign, Acusim, FloVENT, FloEFD

Hi again, I recently came across an interesting HVAC application of FloEFD, our CAD-embedded CFD package for concurrent product design, from one of our users in the Netherlands, Royal Boon Edam. I think it just shows how ubiquitous CFD has become in the world today when a manufacturer that was founded in 1873 as a carpentry workshop and has now grown into an international leader in the design and development … Read More

CFD, FloEFD, Bob Dylan, Revolving Doors, Royal Boon Edam, HEC (Holland Engineerings Consultants BV), HVAC

The recently released FloEFD HVAC Module brings a raft of features specifically tailored to enable FloEFD to be used for built environment simulations. FloEFD  has an unrivalled pedigree in the automating of advance CFD (computational fluid dynamics) techniques and capabilities, allowing the user to focus on application and not numerics. This democratisation of CFD brings the ability to simulate the … Read More

FloEFD HVAC Module, FloVENT, FloEFD, HVAC

Today is the 2nd Sunday of Advent. I am preparing for Christmas. Since my childhood I have been really fond of Christmas-trees and candles on the tree. But my father has always been afraid of fire, therefore candles were lit only when my parents were present. It changed  with the strings of  bulbs. They introduced a new game: when decorating the tree, one had to test the string since the low voltage … Read More

LED reliability, FloEFD, T3ster, LED testing, LM80 tests

It seems that my previous post resonated deeply with everyone – I received a lot of offline comments and my post inspired two of my colleagues (Boris and Andras) to do their own blog posts. This doesn’t shock me because Thanksgiving week is one of the busiest travel periods in the States so everyone is thinking about flying. So I thought we should stay with the subject for one more day and look at it … Read More

T3ster, Thermal, FloEFD, CFD, LED, QA, FloVENT, hybrid engine

There aren’t that many things in our daily lives that are measured in tenths or even hundredths of a second but athletes are constantly battling time. Sometimes a race is won with such a large margin that seconds just don’t matter (did anyone see the last few legs of the Tour de France?).  And sometimes, every nanosecond counts. If you watched the snow sports in the 2010 Winter Olympics then you’d know … Read More

Concurrent CFD, FloEFD, CFD

CFD, Giving Our Prototype Machinists a Break Computational fluid dynamics, of CFD, was a central focus of recent industry events, and I find the topic keeps cropping up in mil/aero discussions of late. In fact, CFD simulation tools are increasingly being employed by military prime contractors (aka, primes) to meet contract requirements, such as survivability in extreme environments and temperatures, … Read More

Mentor.com, Mentor Graphics, Hardware, aluminum, Azonix, Heat Sink, Mechanical, Mentor, Aerospace, Embedded Systems, Copper, Crane, Engineer, CAD, FloEFD, CFD, Design Automation, Mil-Aero, Thermal, Vetronics, Software, Terra Server, Model, prototype, Milaero, Military

So, after three blog posts, what is the moral of this Blue Ridge Numerics’ “CFD Comparison Chart” saga? Well, clearly one should not believe every “CFD Comparison Chart”! – or even the many “charts” that one vendor has put out. Rather, the story suggests that people who are thinking of buying a CFD tool for the first time might be well advised to be wary of what vendors claim about their own software … Read More

Ed Williams, Concurrent CFD, FloEFD, Blue Ridge Numerics, Caveat Emptor, 5-Star Support, Global Environment Fund Management Corporation, Choosing a CFD Code, Jim Spann, Computational Fluid Dynamics, CFD Comparison Chart, Upfront CFD, CFdesign

In my earlier posts I pointed out some glaring errors in the “CFD Comparison Chart” that Blue Ridge Numerics released on March 19th this year. Once we became aware of the “Chart” we quickly wrote a letter to Ed Williams, the CEO of Blue Ridge Numerics, and asked that they reveal the technical workings behind their outrageous claims. Including those I’ve mentioned, we pointed out a total of 6 very obvious … Read More

Jim Spann, Global Environment Fund Management Corporation, Upfront CFD, CFD Comparison Chart, CFdesign, Blue Ridge Numerics, Ed Williams, FloEFD, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Concurrent CFD

No one really knows where the term “mind your P’s and Q’s” came from or what it really means. I always thought it had something to do with being polite and saying thank you. But in a recent article by Erich Buergel, our division General Manager, he talked about the 3 P’s of the business world and why we should mind them in our quest for greater productivity. They are (in no particular order) People, … Read More

Design Engineer, FloEFD, CFD, FloVENT

In my last post I pointed out a very obvious mistake in Blue Ridge Numerics’ “CFD Comparison Chart” of March 19th this year, which incorrectly stated that FloEFD can only handle incompressible sub-sonic flows. The reason I highlighted this as the most obvious mistake in the “CFD Comparison Chart” is that FloEFD can trace its history back to the Russian Aerospace Industry in the late 1980s originating … Read More

FloEFD, Fan Characterization, Global Environment Fund Management Corporation, CFD Comparison Chart, Turbomachinery, Upfront CFD, CFdesign, Blue Ridge Numerics, Jim Spann, Ed Williams, Pump Efficiency, Electronics Cooling, Rotating Reference Frame, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Solar Heating, Concurrent CFD

Rarely do I get a feeling of déjà vu in my professional life, but in March of this year something I was shown gave me a flashback to the 1980s. Some people will remember those halcyon days of two decades ago when commercial CFD was still in its infancy. Way back then the big commercial CFD vendors (Fluent, CHAM, Fidap, Flomerics, STAR-CD, and AEA) would regularly bring out CFD Comparison Charts comparing … Read More

Ed Williams, Desktop Engineering, FloEFD, Upfront CFD, Blue Ridge Numerics, Shock Capture, CFD Comparison Chart, SolidWorks, Supersonic, ANSYS, Transonic, Fluent, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Global Environment Fund Management Corporation, Concurrent CFD, Hypersonic, CFdesign, Jim Spann, CFX

If you’re involved in CFD in education in any way this will be of interest to you. Since shortly after Flomerics were acquired by Mentor Graphics we’ve been working towards getting out products into Mentor’s Higher Education Program (HEP), and we’ve finally got it done. To my knowledge, the availability of potentially millions of dollars worth of commercial CFD software, plus support and training, … Read More

Mentor HEP, Higher Education, Thermal Design, Concurrent CFD, Education, CFD, Thermal Management, FloVENT, Upfront CFD, Electronics Cooling, FloEFD

I admit it. I’m a petrol-head and so are the guys around the office. We watch Top Gear and Fifth Gear and come to work abuzz about the latest car news (and the stunts).  So when I heard about a new race car design that was completed in 8 weeks, I was pretty excited. I thought these things took much longer than that! The CEEMO Engineering concept car in action. Image courtesy of Voxdale. CEEMO Engineering … Read More

Automotive Design, car chassis, aerodynamic, FloEFD, What-If, concept car, Design Engineer