New Physical Models and Automatic FEM-Interface increase Power and Ease-of-Use

Frankfurt, Germany (July 15, 2005) - NIKA GmbH, the leading provider of fluid flow and heat transfer simulation software for engineers, today announced the release of the latest generation of their Engineering Fluid Dynamics (EFD) product family. EFD.Lab, EFD.V5 for CATIA V5 and EFD.Pro for Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire will feature the new EFD 6.0 engine. Version 6.0 will offer new physical models that enable analysis of even more complicated designs, automatic interfaces to popular Finite Element Modeling (FEM) programs as well as a new postprocessor for analysis results visualization.

“The new generation of our fluid flow analysis products significantly extends the potential application areas for flow simulation” said Roland Feldhinkel, managing director of NIKA GmbH. “Our goal is to make even very complex and very large simulation tasks a day-to-day job for every qualified engineer by improving the cost effectiveness of virtual prototyping even further and increasing the general availability of flow simulations within the digital product development process.”

The EFD product family offers analysis of compressible and incompressible liquids and gases, laminar and turbulent flows, heat transfer and species transport for steady-state and transient flow regimes as well as numerous other sophisticated physical models. They can be used for the development and optimization of various products such as automotive parts, computer housings, valves and regulators within a shorter time frame and with better quality.

Version 6.0 Overview

EFD.Lab, EFD.V5 for CATIA V5 and EFD.Pro for Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire will feature the following enhancements:

New Physical Models

Rotating Equipment: Version 6.0 significantly extends the modeling capabilities for rotating equipment. It now enables users to simulate multiple rotating parts interacting with non-rotating areas in the same model. This feature allows the analysis of very complex models such as turbo machinery, pumps, heat sinks with mounted fans, mixers with baffles, wind power plants, electrical tools and domestic appliances. This function was implemented by following NIKA’s strict usability standards. The process is quite simple: rotating regions are defined by selecting the parts involved directly from the CAD model and then assigned rotation speed. The remaining data including the definition of the interaction with the non-rotating areas, the mesh generation and the definition of numerical parameters, is set by the software automatically.

Domain Simulation: NIKA’s Fluid Domain concept now allows the simulation of domains with different flow types within a single model. For instance, the direct modeling of heat exchangers or liquid-cooled extrusion dies is now possible by defining flow regions containing gases, liquids, or non-Newtonian liquids directly inside the CAD model.

Heat Transfer: A new model for efficient simulation of very thin heat conducting layers as well as a new compact model for heat sinks with fans will significantly reduce the required computational resources for a wide range of electronics cooling tasks. Steam will now be a pre-defined material in the integrated Engineering Database, and a new Navier wall slip coefficient will make the simulation of in-die flows of rubber and plastic melts much more realistic.

New Interface to FEM and other 3rd Party Software

Version 6.0 will automate the process for using flow simulation results data directly from within 3rd party programs. NIKA will offer a documented programming interface for the transfer of results data at any given point in the computational domain. The interface also includes definition of boundary conditions for virtually all FEM codes such as wind loads, temperature loads or heat transfer coefficients. Other potential applications vary from processing of flow simulation results using simple VBA macros in MS Excel up to complete stand-alone applications programmed using MS Visual C++.

Improved Usability

NIKA’s new input wizard tool will help to reduce data definition mistakes significantly while it increases data input flexibility. It has been designed to meet the different requirements of both novice and expert users. It also features a new Wizard Navigator that provides a great overview of the modeling steps.

Enhanced Results Visualization

A new shading option significantly improves the three-dimensional impression of most of the graphics. Also, virtually all graphical outputs can be manipulated by mouse in real-time. In addition, Version 6.0 offers new functions for 3D flow trajectories and animations.