I have a serious problem.. I work with heat transfer as a designer, constructor of cooling cabinet. We want to use CFD softwer for optimalizing thermodinamical fields in cabinets. And the question is: Which program is the better for this type of analysis for an industrial use? CFDesign or ANSYS CFX.

Why are you limiting yourself to those two?

We have tried COSMOS FloWorks but it was not enought for us. We tired Fluent but fluent was too complicated.. Then we have find CFDesign and Ansys.

Flotherm?

Yes, Flotherm is quite good choice for us, but we don´t have support and maitenance in our country and countryes around for this software.

Some experiences with CFDesign and Ansys. We have here production and I afraid that Ansys isn´t suitable for an industrial use. And the other way CFDesign is quite a simple program..

It´s a hard choice, please help me with your experiences....

star-ccm+?

You can use ANSYS CFX. It is robust solver and good in heat transfer model . Moreover it is good for post processing tool.

I am suprised why ANSYS Fluent is not supporting to your heat transfer problem. It is my first priorty to try in Fluent compare to CFX.

There are certain guide lines to be follow for heat transfer simulation. Contact Fluent technical support for "Best practice guideline for heat transfer model".

star-ccm+? [2]

yes star-ccm+ what about it? I was suggesting it as another option for varga.

If you think Fluent is too complicated, this basically rules out Fluent/Star-CD/CFX as they are comparable in complexity. They are all-purpose CFD packages. If you want something specific for your application which might also be cheaper (don't know actually), you have to ask around in your specific area of industry.

Mind you, Fluent/Star-CD/CFX can all do the job for you, I'm very much convinced of that. But if complexity of the code is an issue, go for dedicated codes. For heat exchangers you have at least a whole lot of tuned small codes with a high degree of empiricism.

Good luck.

hello, i have actually used some ansys, some fluent and currently work with cfdesign. cfdesign integrates with CAD software and is easier to use. it is abit more intelligent both in meshing and solution than other cfd software. it meshes directly from your cad and has very good automatic meshing techniques. you dont have to be a cfd expert to use it, however, this can be tricky and it still needs a lot of verification to make sure ur results are correct and are similar to experimental values. (however this should be done for all cfd)

cfdesign is also written in C which makes it faster than fortran. however it is limited. it cannot cope with phase changes or combustion. it is dedicated to fluid flows and heat transfer.

as for the other two software, they are the most famous however they may be a bit more tedious to use in a design office..in the sense that you might require more expertise to manage them successfully.

i see cfdesign as someone who can drive a car, but not necissarily understand every single ting thats going on in the engine/gearbox/etc.. yet he can still drive his car well!

a pinto sorry could not help

Hi if your application is just related to cooling cabinet other option you can go for is ICEPAK. This package usses fluent solver at background but is more customised towards electronics cooling stuff. which will give you simple software interfac e along with good results as given by fluent.

I used both of them and I suggest Cfdesign if you don't want to become a CFD expert but you use a Cfd code for industrial applications. Both the codes work fine, but Cfdesign is easier to be used and more integrated in the CAD. It takes less time to learn it.