Mentor Blogs

I normally don’t do posts about these kinds of things but I was really excited to hear this. Recently FloEFD was given an EDN Magazine’s Hot 100 Electronic Products for 2009 award. The Hot 100 consists of EDN’s list of “the products and technologies that in 2009 heated up the electronics world and grabbed the attention of our editors and our readers.” Fantastic! I know I’m a proud parent but FloEFD … Read More

Concurrent CFD, EDN Hot 100, CAD, FloEFD, Physical Prototype, Electronics Cooling, Embedded

Using CAD-embedded CFD upfront and throughout the design process is the only way to go when it comes to compressing design schedules. We call this approach Concurrent CFD, as the CFD analysis can be done concurrently with design changes, taking upfront CFD to the next level. The product’s performance can be checked at each design iteration, leading to a more fluent CFD process that gives increased confidence … Read More

Fluid Dynamics, Fluent Design, Upfront Analysis, CAD Integration, CFD, CAD Embedded, Upfront CFD, Electronics Cooling, FloEFD, Concurrent CFD, Design Process

I think that we can all agree that one feature of CFD over test is the ability to visualize where the flow is going.  It is quite easy in CFD analysis tools, at least in our tools, to seed the flow any where within the solution and follow particles upstream and/or downstream.  The limitation of this is that it is the results are qualitative.  CFD has the capability, without an extreme amount of extra … Read More

Flow Visualization, CFD, Concentration, Capture Index, FloEFD, FloVENT, Data Center, Electronics Cooling

I’ve been getting some positive feedback on my previous posts on Concurrent CFD so I thought I’d continue with the thread. I’ve described traditional CFD, upfront CFD and concurrent CFD as very different entities - which they are, but I ought to point out that they represent the evolutionary spectrum of how the CFD technology itself has been packaged over the years. Partly this change results from … Read More

Upfront Analysis, Traditional CFD, Upfront CFD, CAD Integration, CFD, CAD Embedded, FloEFD, Fluent Design, Concurrent CFD, Design Flow

Don’t worry… I’m not going Sci-Fi on you. I’m talking about reaction forces. What do I mean by reaction forces? Well, when there is a relative motion between a solid object and a surrounding fluid, a force will be placed on the solid due to the pressure variation over the surface of the solid. This force is caused by the change in speed and direction of the fluid. For example, we see reaction forces … Read More

Safety, Reaction Forces, Design Engineer, FloEFD, CFD, Quality, R&D, Physical Prototype

Me too, though being in the UK I tend to watch more Formula 1. As part of my job I often come across cool pieces of work done by our customers that we can’t publicise the work for reasons of confidentiality. This work by Voxdale is an exception though. It was done a couple of years back, not that long after Voxdale was founded, which makes it all the more impressive, and was done for Champ Car, now … Read More

Upfront CFD, Upfront Analysis, CAD Integration, CFD, CAD Embedded, FloEFD, Fluent Design, Concurrent CFD, Design Process

As promised, here’s the second part of the explanation of why Concurrent CFD is different, or to use a cliché, a paradigm shift in CFD. The animation below looks more closely at why concurrent CFD is different to conventional and upfront CFD. By expanding the CFD process we can see it involves quite a number of steps. In going through the animation you will see that both conventional and upfront CFD … Read More

Upfront CFD, CAD Integration, Concurrent CFD, CAD Embedded, Traditional CFD, Upfront Analysis, FloEFD, Fluent Design

Happy New Year everyone. I hope it’s a prosperous and peaceful year for both you and your company. As promised, here’s a Flash animation showing the difference between traditional CFD, upfront CFD and concurrent CFD which needs some introduction. In traditional CFD, the model geometry is first exported from the CAD system. That’s the easy part. The geometry then needs to be re-imported into the CFD … Read More

Upfront CFD, CAD Integration, Concurrent CFD, CAD Embedded, Fluent Design, Traditional CFD, FloEFD

If you haven’t come across this short video, it gives a good overview of how FloEFD is blazing a path of least resistance so mechanical designers can streamline their workflow using Concurrent CFD – CFD embedded in the mechanical design environment. Note that it’s ONLY by embedding CFD within the MCAD tool that these time savings can be achieved, and FloEFD is the ONLY Concurrent CFD solution … Read More

Concurrent CFD, Design Process, CFD, Upfront Analysis, FloEFD, Fluent Design

While I was waiting for the last few people for my presentation ‘Thermal Design: A Key Part of the Electronics Design Flow’ at the UK Solutions Expo at the Heritage Motor Center in Gaydon a couple of weeks back I thought I’d poll the audience with a couple of questions. It’s rare that I get to speak to an audience of electronics engineers, so I was interested to see how they view thermal design. First … Read More

Upfront Analysis, Thermal Design, Design Collaboration, Design Process, Concurrent CFD, FloTHERM.PCB, Fluent Design, FloEFD

Some more thoughts on the fluent design vs. laminar flow analogy In my last post I used the example of an airfoil to illustrate a product design (object) that passes smoothly, or fluently through the design process (a fluid) without causing much turbulence (design rework) that otherwise disrupts the downstream flow (late in the design process) making the flow take longer to recover (increasing the … Read More

Upfront Analysis, Concurrent CFD, Design Flow, CFD, Fluent Design, Fluid Dynamics, Design Process, FloEFD

Electrical engineers often talk about a ‘design flow’, which Wikipedia defines as ‘the explicit combination of electronic design automation tools to accomplish the design of an integrated circuit.’ I heard the term a lot when making presentations at the Solutions Expos in the last few weeks. To someone with a background in fluid dynamics, flow means something rather different, but what electronic engineers … Read More

Upfront, Concurrent Design, Design Flow, CFD, Flow Behavior, Fluid Dynamics, Design Process, FloEFD

Thermal headroom is a concept I’ve been pushing for a few years, but I guess many people aren’t familiar with it, so I thought some additional commentary would be appropriate. Here goes: What I’ve drawn looks pretty simple. Starting from the ambient we can attribute to total temperature rise for some critical IC to a temperature rise in the air, the PCB and/or heat sink, then the temperature rise in … Read More

Thermal Management, Thermal Headroom, Design Flow, Design Process, CFD, FloTHERM.PACK, Thermal Design, FloEFD

I read in the news this last week that Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a Brit and the inventor of the World Wide Web, has confessed that the // in a web address were actually “unnecessary”… and it seems that polar ice will be gone in the summer, perhaps by as early as 2020, opening the arctic ocean to shipping. At the same time I’m writing this on my laptop, the fan’s just cut in. Hmmm… The Berners-Lee story … Read More

Optimisation, Heat Transfer, Power Consumption, CFD, Electronics Cooling, Carbon Footprint, World Wide Web, Global Warming, Green Design, Energy Efficiency, FloEFD

One of the things I’m responsible for in the Mechanical Analysis Division is promoting the use of our software in education. It’s something I care passionately about and see great potential for our mechanical CAD-embedded tools to revolutionize the way fluid dynamics is taught, particularly at undergraduate level. In part it’s because I believe that if engineers knew what CFD can do in terms of providing … Read More

Education, FloEFD, CFD, Professional Development, Fluid Dynamics, Free Demo