Mechanical Analysis Blog

One thing the Mechanical Analysis Division is not guilty of is vendor hubris. Despite the passion we have about our CFD based simulation solutions we know our place, especially in terms of where best to apply our solutions throughout the design process. CFD is a very powerful tool to predict 3D heat air flow and heat transfer but it certainly isn’t the only approach. As is common in both electronics … Read More

FloVENT, HVAC, Electronics Cooling, thermal comfort, U-Value

Conventional wisdom has it that the best place to put a radiator in a room is under the window. However, there’s nothing conventional about wisdom and one should be obliged to question and verify those facts that we take for granted. CFD and its ability to predict air flow and heat transfer offers an unrivalled efficient method to study such applications. Using the concept of PPD (percentage people … Read More

FloVENT, HVAC, CFD, radiator, thermal comfort

Sometime between 40 and 100 thousand years ago humans started to wear clothes, an estimate as accurate as you’d expect for something that wasn’t documented at the time. Earliest estimate of  humans documenting language are a mere 5000 years ago. One can only assume that it wasn’t modesty or fashion that drove the adoption of clothing, but comfort. Much of what we still do today, frequently … Read More

thermal comfort, Fanger, FloVENT, CFD, PPD, radiator, HVAC, PMV

With the gulf stream having shifted south and now flowing happily somewhere high over Paris, the summer weather in the UK has been ‘unseasonably’ (literally) wet and miserable. People’s heating has been thermostatically popping back on all over the country which for July is unheard of. So with this as the background and in the context of a stagnating world economy, ever continuing … Read More

HVAC, radiator, FloVENT, thermal comfort

The UK government has a policy for all year 10 or year 11 students to undertake a week’s work experience. Last week we welcomed a 15 year old student to the Mentor office where the FloTHERM and FloVENT software development is done. The student was tasked with simulating the air flow and temperature distribution in the office space using FloVENT. Using our own software to model our own offices … Read More

Electronics Cooling, FloVENT, CFD, HVAC, thermal comfort