CFX-Flo vs CFDesign
 

Hello ppl,

The company I'm working in decided in acquiring a CFD package for optics(LEDS)/electronic cooling. We boiled down to two packages CFX-Flo with the radiation modules and CFDesign containing the Advance Module. There is a significant difference in price being CFX more expensive. Can some here that have or had contact both packages could give me a better insight of each other? I find ANSYS CFX-flo having a good compatibility with CATIA v5 being able to open the file without the need to open firstly the CAD system (and easily updates the geometry when modified). Where CFDesign I have to open catia with the file on it and I think if I have a large file in CATIA even difutured when trying to extract it to CFDesign environment could reach the RAM limit and crash (CATIA in 32 OS). The GUI CFX looks good and easy to use even so I find it hard to setup a fan. Could some one give some of the pro and cons of each one?

Hallo RoadMaster,
both codes are good. Cfdesign is definetly easier to use: in particular the meshing process is faster and easy. For electronic cooling in Cfdesign you have some particular fetaures (for example in defining the materials) that can speed up the process.
Regarding the radiation module, probably CFX has some advanced models that Cfdesign doesn't have (they use two different approches), but remember that CFX is very mesh demanding (the quality of the mesh must be really good and Hexa meshes work better!!) and eventually also RAM demanding.
It depends on the kind of problems you have to approach and the time you may spend on the simulation.
Regarding the CAD interface I can't help much as I never used CATIA, but usually both CFX and Cfdesign work fine if the geometry is clean!
Regards

Hi,

I don't know why you say CFX is mesh demanding. For the application being proposed here the normal prism/tet mesh in CFX should be fine and CFX is not very demanding of mesh quality here.

CFX does use more memory than most CFD codes due to the fully coupled solver. However the fully coupled solver then leads to faster and more robust convergence for many classes of problems.

At the end of the day the only way is to trial both codes and test them on your application.

Glenn Horrocks

Hallo Glenn,
I agree with you: "test both codes on your applicaton".
I said CFX is more mesh demanding as I experienced it on radiation problems (v. 10) and I had problems with the mesh. Anyway this might be a particular case.
I think Roadmaster can find the better solution for his own application.
Regards
mic

FloEFD is also a very good code with a specific electronics cooling module, and you would be very welcome to evaluate it for your application.

I am not sure where you are based but if you let me know I can point you in the right direction for a local Mentor office. In the meantime our website is http://www.mentor.com/products/mechanical/

Any trial version to download of Flotherm?