Fluent Delivers Indoor Environmental Airflow Modeling for under $6000

September 4, 2002, Lebanon, NH, The world leader in flow modeling software, Fluent Inc. announces the availability of Airpak/RSF - a new service that significantly reduces the entry cost for using engineering simulation software in the design of buildings and other facilities. This new subscription-based service delivers Airpakä airflow modeling software through a secure internet portal. The user pays for simulation time, rather than having to purchase additional hardware and software. This pay-as-you-go option lets building designers get started with powerful airflow modeling tools for less than $6,000 allowing costs to be scaled to project needs. Airpak helps building designers to better understand and visualize the performance of various ventilation systems. It quickly and accurately simulates room airflow patterns, temperature distribution, contaminant distribution, ventilation effectiveness, and thermal comfort so designers can optimize their ventilation systems design and minimize risk exposure well before construction begins.

"I saw the value of airflow modeling years ago, but couldn't manage the upfront costs of the better simulation packages. The Airpak/RSF lets me have the best of both worlds. Now, I can scale my airflow modeling usage and costs to fit my project workload, and get all the computing horsepower I need from any location, at any time. My clients appreciate being able to visualize how the design will perform, and I value the competitive advantage it gives me in the proposal process," says Paul Martin of Sigma Psi Consulting.

Driven by the powerful Fluent Remote Simulation Facility, the Airpak/RSF uses a secure internet portal that allows users to exploit supercomputer capacity from their own desktop, but only have to pay for what they need. The Airpak/RSF is specifically designed for small to medium-sized companies who need indoor environmental airflow simulation capabilities on a project-driven basis. This dynamic new simulation system lets the user get started on their project right away, building and meshing models locally before uploading the job to a secure supercomputer facility for the number-crunching part of the simulation. After the simulation is complete, the user simply downloads the results for local post-processing. The user need not worry about availability since the Airpak/RSF is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. The facility uses state-of-the-art security and systems infrastructure from providers that include Cisco, Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, and Hewlett Packard.

Pricing and Availability

The Airpak/RSF is now available on a worldwide basis at prices beginning at under $6,000 US. This typical start-up cost for a user new to the Airpak/RSF includes the license fees, unlimited use of the Airpak pre/post-processor on the users local machine, training, 40 CPU-hours of supercomputer simulation time, and 8 hours of user support. Additional simulation time can be purchased at rates as low as $10/CPU hour in volume. Time spent on the user's computer for model creation, meshing, and post-processing are not metered, nor is the interactive "online" time. For more information on the Airpak/RSF please visit the http://www.airpak.fluent.com/software/rsolve/index.htm website.

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 prediction of fluid flow, heat and mass transfer, and chemical reactions. It is a vital part of the computer-aided engineering (CAE) process for companies around the world and in almost every manufacturing industry. Using Fluent's software, product development, design, and research engineers build virtual prototypes and simulate the performance of proposed and existing designs, which helps them to optimize, troubleshoot, scale-up, and retrofit. Use of CFD software reduces time-to-market by reducing the need for costly physical testing and prototyping.

Fluent's corporate headquarters are located in Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA. Fluent's European headquarters are located in Sheffield, England, with local offices in Belgium, France, Germany, India, Italy, and Sweden. Fluent's Asia Pacific headquarters are located in Tokyo, Japan. Its flow modeling software is also available around the world through joint ventures, partnerships, and distributors in Korea, Australia, Brazil, China, Taiwan, the Czech Republic, the Middle East, and most European countries.

Fluent is a subsidiary of Aavid Thermal Technologies Inc. Additional information on Fluent's products can be obtained on the World Wide Web at www.fluent.com or by emailing info@fluent.com. More information on Aavid Thermal Technologies is available at www.aavid.com.

Airpak is a joint development of Fluent Inc. and ICEM-CFD Engineering

FLUENT is a registered trademark of Fluent Inc.

For more information, contact:

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