Converting from outsourcing to inhouse cFD
 

Hi! I am a mechanical engineering student with a rather limited experience in CFD and a big challenge in front of me. My task is to help a company to bring their CFD calculations in-house.
At the moment the company are sending step-files to consultant workers who does the meshing, pre/post-processing and calculations in Ansys CFX and then send the results back to the company for them to analyze.
This costs a lot and has long lead times causing the R&D process to be very disruptive and non iterative.
The application the CFD are performed on is a ENCLOUSURE of a gas turbine, and the problem is concerning air flow in the enclosure. The CFD results are used to analyze and make sure that there is sufficient air flow in the enclosure to make sure that potential gas leaking from the turbine doesn't accumulate into gas clouds inside the enclosure where air flow is minimal.
So with all this in mind i was looking for some advice on the following subjects: -Fitting software (CFX, Fluent, Star-ccm+) for the application? -Education for current employees with limited knowledge? -Hardware demands?
Feel free to comment any other thoughts;)
Thanks, Veirrei-4

Great question. I've been on both sides of this, the outsourced company, and the company doing the outsourcing.

In my experience, ANSYS products are more user friendly, and better suited for the non-CFD expert. We have worked a lot with a company called Simutech, and they actually provide our software at my firm. They can help with figuring out the right software package for you, computer requirements, and they can even throw training into a package deal.

I need to mention that we are not affiliated with Simutech (other than as a customer), and I don't receive financial reimbursement. I just like them. If you need more info, let me know.

EDIT:
I also need to mention that Simutech is a supplier of ANSYS products only, so they obviously won't sell competitor's packages.

What are you comparing to? I would not recommend ANSYS to a non-CFD / non-simulation expert.

Admittedly, I've been using ANSYS long enough that perhaps there are newer softwares or versions available that I haven't tried.

I've used fluent/Gambit (before ANSYS bought them), OpenFoam, Code Saturne, Elmer, and a number of other open source programs. I'm also familiar with NX. EDIT - forgot I also tried NASTRAN once, and didn't like it.

Perhaps it's been some time since you've used ANSYS products? As I'm sure you know, they've been buying up a lot of their competitors in the past decade. They have a product called ANSYS AIM that makes CFD extremely simple. You can be up and running with an FSI problem for example in under 10 minutes. I prefer CFX for its balance between power and ease of use. I actually gave a structural engineer a problem to solve with CFX, and he said it was really easy for him (non-CFD expert, but had some fluids background).

EDIT2:
I also need to say that Dasssault systemes seems to be giving ANSYS a run for their money with Solidworks flow simulation IMO. Maybe a close 2nd, though I don't have a ton of experience with it. It just appears to be user friendly. Others may have a better feel for it.

Also, often companies will give you a trial of their software. Definitely recommended. We've always used the trial period as a decision point.

When you compare yourself to the worst in class, it's easy to look better. All those codes, especially the open source ones, are targeted towards expert users. You need to look at codes such as 6sigma, FloEFD, scSTREAM, SolidWorks Flow, etc. which are specifically targeted towards non-experts.

I think Ansys developed AIM because they realized they may be losing on the "democratization" trend. They will face heavy competition from Siemens and Dassault going forward.

Thanks for the input guys!!

What opinion do you guys have of star-ccm+ going forward? Since Cd-adapco have been bought by Siemens is there any changes you might expect in the interface etc. going forward?

/Veirrei-4

you are not an expert I recommend scStream, Floefd (solidworks flowsimulation). They are user friendly and reasonably accurate. Ansys' s products are difficult to work with if you start from scratch The same is valid for star CCM+ too