Tips & Tricks

Conditional Expressions in CFD-VIEW Calculator

Conditional expressions can be used in the CFD-VIEW calculator to put logic into the calculator expressions. For example you could create new variables that have a specified range of values. These variables can then be used to make plots and perform calculations.

Calculating Mass Flux in CFD-VIEW

Flow analyses often require information about mass flux computed across a surface in the computational domain. If the surface of interest happens to be a boundary condition (inlet or outlet) or a fluid-fluid interface, the mass flux across it can be found in the output (modelname.out) file if the “Mass Flux Summary” option is turned on under the Out/Print tab in CFD-ACE-GUI.

Particle Tracing in CFD-VIEW

A Particle Trace or Streamline is the trajectory of a particle moving in a fluid. Being able to visualize/analyze this trajectory can be very helpful in understanding flow patterns and flow distribution.

Making Plots Along Constant Radius Curves

How do I plot a variable along the circumference of a circle or circular arc? The above query has been made several times by CFD-ACE+ users. In case of cylindrical geometry, it’s very useful to have a plot of the desired variable along a circle of certain radius.

Creating Strip Charts in CFD-VIEW

The Strip Chart feature in CFD-VIEW is a very useful tool for analyzing time dependent quantities from transient simulations. The feature can be found in the second row of the Operator Palette as shown. This note provides you with an overview of how to use and implement the Strip Chart feature.

Parametric Studies Using SimManager

Parametric studies are an important aspect of CFD analysis. Parametric studies are used to perform trend base analyses, optimize the deign of a device, and/or to study the affect of different parameters on a process (What if? type analysis).

How to Compare the Model Setup Between Two DTF Files

Have you ever wanted to find the differences between two DTF files? If you have, then you will probably be interested in a DTF utility included in your ESI Software installation. The utility is called dtf_diff and can be found in your UTILS_2009.0/bin directory.

CFD-ACE+ and CFD-TOPO Coupling

There is a growing demand and challenge in different industries, especially semiconductor and MEMS areas, to have increased wafer size with reduced feature size, i.e. high quality process uniformity.

Parametric Studies with CFD-FASTRAN

CFD-FASTRAN-GUI has a new "Parametric Set Up" template that allows the user to run parametric cases. Most of the text input fields - including boundary conditions, properties, and solver control parameters - are available for parametric run. This allows the user to submit the parametric cases in one shot and post-process the results later on.

Understanding cell-splitting in CFD-VisCART and its effect on cell count

A grid created in CFD-VisCART will have a high percentage of Cartesian cells (100% for Stair-Step Mesh; as high as 90-95% for Projected Mesh). Since these form the bulk of the grid, it helps to make sure that these cells are built in an efficient manner.