Car aerodynamic simulation software ELEMENTS

basic information

To determine the shape of vehicles and improve interior comfort, various manufacturers conduct large-scale CFD simulations and wind tunnel experiments. The challenges are accuracy, analysis speed, and cost. Until now, it has been believed that increasing accuracy and analysis speed correlates with higher costs. In other words, more accurate CFD software is more expensive, and to increase analysis speed, software capable of hundreds or even thousands of high-speed parallel computations and HPC is required. However, if there were a CFD software that is highly accurate and capable of large-scale parallel computation available for free, it would solve a significant portion of this challenge. For several years, there has been hope for the open-source CFD toolbox, OpenFOAM developed by the UK company OpenCFD, as a tool for this purpose. However, the difficulty in creating a user-friendly GUI for vehicle designers and applications for general design has led manufacturers to hesitate in adopting it. However, in November 2012, the situation is poised to change dramatically with the announcement of "ELEMENTS" by Streamline Solutions.

Price range

Delivery Time

P3

Applications/Examples of results

【Analysis Targets】 ○ Aerodynamic analysis ○ In-vehicle HVAC analysis ○ Temperature analysis under the vehicle ○ Fluid noise analysis ○ Effects of soil and water 【Features】 ○ User-friendly GUI ○ Wizard functionality that incorporates extensive simulation technology know-how, including rich meshing and solver tuning ○ Hexahedral-based parallel mesh generation possible with minimal CAD repair ○ Cost-free ultra-parallel computing achieved through enhanced robustness using OpenFOAM ○ Development of a post-processor FlowViz dedicated to vehicle design verification ○ Development of a style design platform tailored to vehicle models (scheduled for release in Spring 2014)