by josh perry, editor [email protected]
a recent article from electronic design written by tom gregory, a product manager at future facilities as part of its 6sigmaet team, highlighted the challenges that engineers face when considering thermal management in an era of high component-density and increasing power demands and the enhanced tools that are available to assist the design process.
new unstructured grids allow for faster thermal simulations. (wikimedia commons)
gregory noted that the increased computing power available has been a boost to the software’s capabilities with unstructured grids being the latest enhancement that has made cfd more effective for engineers.
“to start, a high-resolution grid is placed over the entire design of the model, after which a hierarchy of progressively coarse cartesian grids are constructed,” he explained. “the solver then identifies only those cells that are necessary to map out the design’s geometry.”
the built-in intelligence of software tools such as 6sigmaet’s solver program can take out the need for defining structured grids for pieces of the design that do not require detailed analysis. now, engineers can focus on the finer portions of the grid that need the most attention.
“for thermal engineers, using the 6sigmaet solver could see a design that would normally demand close to one billion grid cells simplified to just six million cells,” said gregory. “this would ultimately provide an accurate solution in a matter of minutes, rather than hours or days.”
as engineers continue to look for ways of reducing time to market and, of course, project costs, every second saved on simulations is critical.
“today’s thermal simulations need to be increasingly detailed—requiring both specialist software and powerful hardware—yet many engineers are continuing to test their designs on slow, unreliable, and outdated technology, despite the evident drawbacks,” gregory continued.
“a number of advances have been made in thermal engineering over the past decade, and there’s no reason for engineers to be spending days solving their simulations.”
read the full article at http://www.electronicdesign.com/industrial-automation/unstructured-grids-help-solve-thermal-simulation-issues.
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