Mechanical Analysis Blog

I don’t particularly care for airports. You rush to get to them. You rush thru check-in and push your way thru never-ending queues to go thru security and get the prerequisite pre-boarding massage (I seem to get pat downs as I go thru security a lot and even though I gladly submit to them I’m starting to think that they are a new service that the airlines provide and thus deserve a proper marketing … Read More

CFD, electromagnetic, Avionics, ROI, FloEFD, interference

As a FloTHERM, FloVENT or FloEFD user you might not realise it but you are part of a global and growing user community. This year we are hosting 3 ‘U2U’ (user to user) meetings in Germany, France and the UK. This is a golden opportunity for you to meet other users, hear about our exciting new products, see fascinating keynote and user presentations, learn advanced software tips and tricks, … Read More

U2U, FloEFD, user meeting, FloVENT

I travel a fair bit. Sometimes it’s a short hop across the channel to the Continent and sometimes it’s a long haul flight to the States. Regardless of whether the flight is one hour, 3 hours or 15 hours, you mentally need to prepare yourself for several things: sitting next to someone with a cold/cough, sitting behind someone who will immediately recline their seat and reduce your usable leg space … Read More

FloVENT, FloEFD, Visualization

Hello everybody, I know it’s about time again, I was a little busy with LEDs lately, had some very interesting visits of customers working with LEDs and was working a webinar for use of LEDs in Automotive. You canegister now for this Automotive LED webinar. But this time it is not about Automotive but about LEDs, I just happened to read an article about Applebee’s plan to switch to LED … Read More

Energy Saving, FloEFD, Consumer LED, going green, LED

Hi everyone, I’ve been a bit silent for the past couple of months but there’s a good reason for it. I’ve been working behind the scenes organizing a few events. And now I’m very pleased to announce our upcoming Mechanical U2Us — a series of Mechanical Analysis Division specific User 2 User meetings which will be held around the world. If you are unfamiliar with the Mechanical … Read More

FloVENT, FloEFD, Mechanical U2U

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