December 20, 2001, Lebanon, New Hampshire…Fluent Inc., the world's leading CFD software provider, announces the release of FLUENT 6.0. This major new offering from Fluent is built on its robust and time-tested, unstructured CFD platform, with particularly notable leaps forward in the modeling of engineering problems involving multiphase physics, rotating equipment, and combustion. Highly advanced tools, which enable the user to create a moving/deforming mesh for analysis of in-cylinder engine performance, also make their debut as a beta capability in this version.

Lowest Cost-of-Ownership Fluent's development team implemented a comprehensive testing program on this new version, to ensure that the release would have wide industrial applicability, right out of the box. "Each major new feature of FLUENT 6.0 went through a series of tests, culminating with at least one complex, real-world industrial problem, provided by a customer," says Fluent vice president Dr. Swaminathan Subbiah. "We know that when CFD users have to spend their time and effort to pre-validate and test their CFD software, the cost of CFD ownership goes up for them. We have largely eliminated the need for this type of second-guessing by doing the testing ahead of time, documenting it, and making it available to our users," he continues. "We offer FLUENT 6.0 to the market with great confidence that its new functionality will be widely applicable in an industrial setting."

"Fluent has entered into a league of their own with the release of FLUENT 6.0. In my testing efforts, I found that even when using the Eulerian-Eulerian model for complex geometries, along with FLUENT's fully unstructured code, the calculation time was substantially faster than FLUENT 4.5. In addition to these major enhancements, the code remains easy to use and continues to employ its intuitive setup," says M. Karim Essemiani of Vivendi Water.

To read additional comments by FLUENT 6.0 beta testers, go to http://www.fluent.com/software/fluent/testimonials.htm .

CFD Firsts FLUENT 6.0 sets the standard in certain areas of CFD modeling with capabilities new to the field, including the ability to use granular kinetic theory for Eulerian simulations on unstructured meshes. This capability is necessary to correctly predict the behavior of solids in multiphase flows. The formulation includes the solids pressure and can accurately describe transitions in the solids phase as the packing limit is reached. The Eulerian granular model is intended for applications such as fluidized beds, risers, solids suspension, and sedimentation. Three phase flows (gas-liquid-solids) can also be modeled using FLUENT 6.0. Another noteworthy CFD first is the capability of FLUENT 6.0 to postprocess results using turbomachinery-specific coordinates in its unstructured environment. This gives users modeling pumps, fans, blowers, and other rotating equipment the freedom to accurately model their geometry using an unstructured mesh without sacrificing the ability to examine meridional, pitchwise and spanwise cuts. A new eddy dissipation concept model, also an industry first, provides unique capabilities for pollutant formation analysis, such as NOx abatement studies. New spray models in FLUENT 6.0 include both primary and secondary atomization, and can be used in conjunction with liquid droplet combustion.

Parallel Processing FLUENT's near-linear scaling during parallel processing has been head and shoulders above other general purpose CFD software, and this position is further advanced with the new version, where dynamic load balancing and other advanced features enable users to easily adapt FLUENT to a wide variety of multiprocessor configurations. The Microsoft Windows version of FLUENT has been integrated with MPI/Pro® from MPI Software Technology Inc. MPI/Pro is a commercial implementation of the MPI standard. FLUENT uses MPI to run in parallel on both computer clusters and multiprocessor machines.

Usability Enhancements FLUENT 6.0 offers a new set of options for postprocessing and visualization, such as automatic generation of animations. Results can be output in VRML format, which enables the user to send three-dimensional images of results across the Web for remote viewing, where the receiver can change views, zoom in/out, and rotate the image.

"The VRML output in FLUENT 6.0 is a welcome new feature that will be important in our work. Additionally, the more advanced integration of visualization services and overall improved functionality make this code a perfect fit for our needs," says Paul Kingston of Hoare Lea Virtual Engineering.

Pricing and Availability FLUENT 6.0 is available on UNIX, NT, and Linux platforms. It is provided at no additional cost to all current FLUENT users who have chosen to purchase upgrades along with their FLUENT license. FLUENT license fees are determined by the number of processes that a user requires. Users may also purchase unlimited usage support.

About Fluent Fluent is the world's largest provider of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software and consulting services. Fluent's software is used for simulation, visualization, and prediction of fluid flow, heat and mass transfer, and chemical reactions. It is a vital part of the computer-aided engineering (CAE) process for companies around the world and in almost every manufacturing industry. Using Fluent's software, product development, design and research engineers build virtual prototypes and simulate the performance of proposed and existing designs, which helps them to optimize, troubleshoot, scale-up, and retrofit. Use of CFD software reduces time-to-market by reducing the need for costly physical testing and prototyping.

Fluent's corporate headquarters are located in Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA. Fluent's European headquarters are located in Sheffield, England, with local offices in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden. Fluent's Asia Pacific headquarters are located in Tokyo, Japan. Its CFD software is also available around the world through joint ventures, partnerships, and distributors in Korea, Australia, Brazil, China, Taiwan, the Czech Republic, Middle East, and most European countries.

Fluent is a subsidiary of Aavid Thermal Technologies Inc. Additional information on Fluent's products can be obtained on the World Wide Web at www.fluent.com or by e-mailing info@fluent.com. More information on Aavid Thermal Technologies is available at www.aavid.com.

FLUENT® is a registered trademark of Fluent Inc. MPI/Pro® is a registered trademark of MPI Software Technology

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Graphics Available Graphic images and accompanying captions to support this release can be found on the web at www.fluent.com/about/news/pr/index.htm by following the links to this release. Fluent Inc. grants permission for use of these graphics and their captions in conjunction with any or all of this press release.

Industry specific press releases for the following industries: chemical, oil-gas, nuclear & fossil power, HVAC, aerospace, glass, semiconductor, metals, turbomachinery and automotive, can be found at www.fluent.com/about/news/pr/index.htm

For more information, contact:

Paul Whalen

Fluent Inc.

10 Cavendish Court

Lebanon, NH 03766

(603) 643-2600 Ext. 666

pww@fluent.com