Fluent Inc., the world leader in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software and services, today announces its partnership with UGS Corp., a leading provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services. Fluent joins the UGS Partnership Program at the Foundation level, and will develop, market, and sell CFD technologies that are seamlessly interoperable with UGS’ NX™ digital product development software.

Paul Bemis, Fluent’s VP of Product Management, notes, “Fluent shares many common clients with UGS and it is critical that both companies partner to meet the needs of these joint customers. Our vision is comprehensive in that we are focusing on the modeling needs of the NX designer and the CFD analyst, simultaneously.”

“As the largest provider of CFD software in the industry, Fluent Inc. is a welcome addition to the UGS Partner Program,” said Chris Kelley, VP, Partner & Platform Marketing, UGS. “Many UGS customers will be able to work more efficiently with the ability to use Fluent’s CFD simulation technology in combination with our NX solution. This partnership further illustrates UGS’ commitment to providing a truly open design and simulation framework for our CAE partners as well as best-in-class digital simulation solutions for our customers as an integral part of a process-managed PLM environment.”

Initial product plans include the Fluent Connection for NX, which includes a native reader for Parasolid® software – the component software for geometric modeling on which NX is based – and NX enhancements that provide ease of use and facilitate the launching of Fluent’s CFD tools within the NX environment. A two-way, fully-associative live reader will complement the Parasolid reader, enabling optimization looping in the design process. Introducing associativity between the design and analysis models reduces the time required for analysis and design iterations, and allows CFD to be applied much earlier in the design process.

“Of key importance today is simplifying the transfer of engineering data between NX and complementary CAE tools,” according to André Bakker, the FloWizard Product Manager at Fluent Inc. “The requirement to translate NX part and assembly models to some intermediate, generic CAD format has already been eliminated with Fluent’s rapid flow modeling tool, FloWizard 2.0, which is equipped with a Parasolid native reader. FloWizard allows an engineer to evaluate a wide range of design alternatives prior to building the first experimental prototype, reducing product development time and cost. UGS has a truly open simulation business model. By working with UGS and taking advantage of their open framework, our joint clients are assured to receive best-in-class CFD technology optimized for their own CAD environment.”

About Fluent

Fluent is the world's largest provider of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software and consulting services. Fluent's software is used for simulation, visualization, and analysis of fluid flow, heat and mass transfer, flow-induced noise and chemical reactions. It is a vital part of the computer-aided engineering (CAE) process for companies around the world and is deployed in nearly every manufacturing industry. FLUENT is used extensively in the automotive industry worldwide by the vast majority of OEM's and their suppliers. Using Fluent's software, engineers build virtual prototypes and simulate the performance of proposed and existing designs, allowing them to improve design quality while reducing cost and speeding time to market. Fluent's corporate headquarters is located in Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA, with offices in Belgium, England, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, China and Sweden. Its CFD software is also available around the world through joint ventures, partnerships, and distributors in Korea, Australia, Brazil, China, Taiwan, the Czech Republic, Middle East, and most European countries.

FLUENT® is registered trademark of Fluent Inc.

For general inquiries contact:

Paul Whalen, Fluent Inc., 10 Cavendish Court, Lebanon, NH 03766 USA, (603) 643-2600 Ext. 666, pww@fluent.com

About UGS Digital Product Development Solutions

UGS provides a complete portfolio of digital product development solutions including the world-class NX CAD, NX CAM and NX CAE applications. The UGS CAE applications suite provides robust tools for multi-CAD geometry-based abstraction, FE modeling and automated meshing within an open simulation framework. UGS® Advanced Simulation applications provide direct access to a common multi-physics environment for performing structural, durability, thermal, flow and combined flow/thermal simulations leveraging NX NASTRAN as well as access to a number of leading third-party solvers such as ABAQUS, ANSYS, FLUENT and MSC.NASTRAN.