Which CFD package to buy?

Vishal Jariwala

Hi Everybody,

My company who produces heavy-duty industrial air compressor is planning to buy a CFD software. I am given the task to do some research and figure out which software is worth buying. I got hired only a month ago and I do not have great background in centrifugal air compressors, but I can definitely gather more info as required. So far my experience has been in algorithm development mainly FVM, and not in industrial CFD. Two candidates are being considered: Ansys CFX and Ansys Fluent. We already have Ansys workbench for mechanical analysis and Autodesk Inventor is regularly used for 3D modeling. Since, we already have one Ansys product, we are more inclined to buy Ansys CFD package for ease of compatibility and portability.

From my rambling on the Internet, I am getting a feeling that Ansys CFX is preferred in the case of turbomachinery compared to Fluent. By I am not sure why? What're the technical reasons?

www.mesco.com.pl/produkty/ansys/cfx_vs_fluent.pdf has pretty good comparison chart.

Even Ansys website talks about CFX while describing what solutions they can provide based on type of industry.

http://www.ansys.com/industries/turbomachinery.asp

Look at the special features. http://www.ansys.com/industries/tm-geometry.asp

How about Ansys Multiphysics?

Let me know your comments.

Thanks, Vishal