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OVERVIEW
Density- and Pressure-Based Flow Solvers for Multiphysics Simulation
Fluid flow simulation from aerodynamics to conjugate heat transfer to unsteady flows and beyond.
Cadence Fidelity Flow provides a solution for a wide range of flow problems, from low speed to high speed, to multi-phase and thermal issues, using Fidelity Automesh for pre-processing combined with the optimal solver technology for that specific problem. Because one size rarely fits all...
Key Benefits
Speed and Accuracy Combined to Solve a Full Spectrum of Multiphysics Challenge
High-Speed Turnaround Time
Fidelity Flow is optimized by scaling linearly on thousands of CPU cores, as well as on GPUs. Combined with our patented CPUBooster technology, a unique convergence acceleration technique, computation time is reduced even further.
Develop and Customize Freely
The OpenLabs module provides a simple and easy-to-learn syntax that allows the user to customize most of the routines of the solver, including adding or editing source terms and equations and controlling the initialization, fluid properties, and boundary conditions. These modifications are automatically compiled, making them execute as fast as if they were implemented in the solver source code.
Nonlinear Harmonic for Every Configuration
Gain 3 orderGaining three orders of magnitude in solving speed for periodic unsteady simulation of rotating parts. The presence of components such as hoods, collectors, or volutes can be considered for a better assessment of the performance of turbomachinery. Non-axisymmetric pressure variations can be modeled with the nonlinear harmonic method, with domains that can be non-periodic and meshed with mixed grids.
Physics
Aerodynamics
From incompressible to supersonic regimes, Fidelity Flow yields fast convergence and numerical robustness. High-speed external flows can be challenging, especially at transonic or supersonic to hypersonic speed. With the Fidelity Flow solver and its density-based formulation, even flows that reach Mach numbers up to 20 for re-entry can be modeled. For low-speed aerodynamics, the pressure-based solver has proven to be an invaluable resource for simulating the flow in many applications, such as automotive, low-speed aircraft, drones, gliders, piping systems, heat exchangers, fans, and hydraulic turbomachinery.
Conjugate Heat Transfer
For applications involving Conjugate Heat Transfer, the pressure-based solver of Fidelity Flow solves everything—velocity, pressure, and energy—in a coupled and implicit way, considerably accelerating the complete workflow. Convergence is sped up even further with incompressible regimes, as we can use a different pseudo timestep for the energy equation.
Applications include:
- Heat exchanger
- Automotive thermal management
- Cooling systems
- Electric motor
- HVAC
Fluid-Structure Interaction
Fluid-structure interaction (FSI) occurs when a fluid flow deforms a structure, which in return influences the flow field.
The significance of aeroelastic instabilities has increased substantially in the last few decades, particularly in the industry of aviation and turbomachinery. A continuous trend toward lightweight and cost-efficient design forces engineers to push the boundaries in the design phase with the risk of vibratory stresses and, in the worst case, vibratory failure.
Fidelity Flow offers several approaches to predict fluid-structure interactions:
- Direct coupling between the flow and the structural solvers
- Modal approach, which takes advantage of the NLH method and solves modal equations. It computes the global deformation of a structure, written as a composition of mode shapes, removing the necessity of interpolation between fluid and solid domains.
Cavitation
Cavitation occurs in liquid flows when the pressure drops below the saturation pressure. It is observed in pumps, nozzles, injectors, marine propellers, and underwater bodies and often causes loss in efficiency, an increase in noise level, structural damage, or erosion.
Our software offers three modeling approaches to analyze cavitation: the barotropic law, thermo-tables, and transport-equation modeling.
Our experience extends to cryogenic flow simulations, with advanced modeling for cavitation and phase change in thermo-sensitive fluids.
Combustion
Modeling combustion applications implies handling multiple species with complex physical and chemical reactions. Conjugate heat transfer and radiation significantly impact the control of the temperature distribution and combustion efficiency.
To respond to these requirements, Fidelity Flow offers several modeling strategies, including the classical flamelet, the hybrid BML/flamelet method, and the flamelet-generated manifolds (FGM) method, to analyze the range of purely non-premixed gaseous to purely premixed combustion applications.
The combustion model can be coupled with pollutant prediction, radiation, and conjugate heat transfer analysis.
Unsteady Flows
For solving unsteady problems, Fidelity Flow’s scale-resolving detached eddy simulation (DES) capabilities support multiple functionalities such as buoyancy, heat source terms, heat transfer, and many more.
For more information, watch this on-demand webinar, "Modeling Unsteady Flow in Turbomachines Much Faster Using NLH.”
Multispecies, Particle Flows, and Sprays
Multiphysics applications often involve two or more fluids of different natures or separate phases of the same fluid. These form mixtures and interactions occur between each. Fidelity Flow offers a wide range of multifluid modeling approaches whose application domain depends on the mixture’s physical properties, concentration, and homogeneity.
The thermo-tables fluid definition captures the phase change phenomena. The inert or reacting multispecies model describes the mixture of gases or liquids, such as pollutant tracking. The Lagrangian particles model tracks the motion of dilute dispersed particles and their interaction with the primary phase, such as sprays, particulate flows, and cyclones. These models can be coupled with all other physical phenomena of the multiphysics environment.
Trust in Fidelity CFD to Provide High-Fidelity Simulation
With CFD workflows being re-assessed every cycle to optimize and improve for greater levels of fidelity and speed, Fidelity CFD serves your simulation necessities by offering a highly automated, customizable solution.
One of the advantages of a fully coupled approach over a component-by-component approach is that the boundary conditions at the interfaces do not need to be guessed.
A Smart Interface methodology ensures a direct coupling between the different engine components, compressor- combustor-turbine, and allows the CFD models to vary between each component within the same CFD code.
For the simulation of the combustion process, the Flamelet Generated Manifold (FGM) method is applied. While the approach is superior to classical tabulated chemistry approaches and reliably captures finite-rate effects, it is also computationally inexpensive.
The Nonlinear Harmonic method is used to model the unsteady interaction between the blade rows as well as the influence of the non-homogeneities at the combustor outlet on the downstream turbine blade rows. This method is 2 to 3 orders of magnitude faster than a classical URANS simulation.
The non-linear harmonic (NLH) method is used to model the unsteady interaction between the blade rows as well as the influence of the non-homogeneities at the combustor outlet on the downstream turbine blade rows. This method is two to three orders of magnitude faster than a classical URANS simulation.
Features
Industry Solutions
Unlock Your Potential
Because fluids and fluid-structure interaction are in just about any system available, CFD simulations are at work in most industries. Some of the key industries where CFD is relevant are marine, commercial, aerospace and defense, automotive, biomedical, and petrochemical, as well as processing and chemical industries.
Turbomachinery
We’ve come a long way from water wheels, yet transferring energy between a rotor and a fluid is still the base mechanism behind the concept of turbomachinery.
Marine
Resistance, propulsion, seakeeping, maneuvering, and wind study.
Automotive
External aerodynamics and turbomachinery have long been a fundamental component of the automotive industry simulation challenge.
Aerospace
The challenge of aerospace CFD is connected to the modeling of turbulence (and transition).
Health
As health technologies advance into more careful and calculated domains of bodily control, so too does the need for advanced and accurate simulation and modeling.
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