Hi,

We are a company considering CFX5 as one of several CFD packages we could potentially buy. I am aware that some 6 months or so ago CFX was bought out by Ansys. Has anyone heard much about what has been going on at CFX or Ansys since that time?

Is everything ticking over like normal? Is development ongoing? Have any the developers left? What is the general vibe from those who have close dealings with CFX or are employees of CFX/Ansys?

I should add that I have not heard any negative rumours, but thought I would ask around and see if anyone closer to the source has heard anything.

It would also be appreciated if other CFD vendors and users who do not use CFX could refrain from making comments!

Thank you.

[An CFD user interested in CFX]

Hello,

The people in the CFX Waterloo office seemed very excited about being aquired by Ansys. The developers in Waterloo that I talked about felt it was a good move for them and their code. I think we will see some interesting things (ie fluid/structure interaction, etc) as a result of the purchase.

Jonathan

I'm not that close to the source, but my genereal feeling is that this has been seen as a positive move by most CFX employees and customers.

CFX/Ansys have continued to recruit throughout the merger and they seem to take quick steps to integrated CFX with Ansys. I have heard no negative words at all and I know quite a few people who work at CFX and who use CFX.

There is a striking difference compared to what happened when Ansys bought ICEM CFD a few years ago - ICEM still have their own logo / web-site / and there seems to be little work going on to bring ICEM fully under the Ansys flag... With CFX things go much faster, they havealready got a new web-site / logo, ... and I also think they have a new strategy and long-term business plan.

People I know at CFX seem to be very active (and positive) in getting this new constellation to work.

In short, I see it as a positive development for CFX, but as I said, I'm not that close to the source and I'm not a CFX user for the moment (but we are always considering CFX as a good alternative...)

Thanks Jonathan and Jonas for your replies.

Are there any others out there with comments?

[An CFD user interested in CFX]

Hi,

From my perspective (as a CFX user) the merger appears to be good. I can assure you code development is continuing at a good pace, and I think the merger will broaden the perspectives of CFX. For instance, integration with the ANSYS FEA code for fluid/structure interaction, but also better intergration with the ICEM CFD meshing software.

In short, I see the merger as positive. What I am interested to see is what CFX is going to do with CFX-Build (the mesh generation part of CFX). Build is based on Patran from MSC. I am sure ANSYS is not happy about paying MSC royalties! So what's going in the release of CFX 5.7 (due late this year I believe)? Will they stick with MSC, transfer to ICEM (which is also part of the ANSYS empire), or use a meshing package based on the ANSYS mesher? Any comments?

Regards, Glenn

Hi Glenn,

So far I have only heard promising reports from the merger.

It would be good to see a direct statement from Ansys/CFX as to what is happening.

I would be a bit concerned if they were using Ansys meshing capabilities (at least the ones I have used in the Ansys/Classic environment) because I am not sure they are really tuned for CFD. I could not imagine them doing this.

It will be interesting to see.

Regards,

[An CFD user interested in CFX]

ANSYS is making a campaign to push CFX user's towards the ICEM CFD methodoology. CFX has experience offering some of the HEXA capabilities to their customers. Currently, Build is based on Patran functionality, so one can safely assume that this will be phased out.

The first offering since the acquisition is known as ICEM CFD 4.CFX. It is essentially a TETRA/PRISM offering with a GUI that resembles AI*Environment. For those that aren't familiar, AI*Environment was a new product with the ICEM functionality with a brand new GUI for structural users. Confused yet?

Here it is in summary. ICEM CFD has two 3D meshers, TETRA and HEXA. CFX has offered (resold) HEXA for some customers. ANSYS wanted to expose the ICEM meshing capabilites to structural users. They put a new GUI over TETRA and named it AI*Environment. They took this new GUI and modified it for CFD users (took out beams etc and added PRISM capabilities) and named it 4.CFX.

Anyway, this is all my own opinion and info regardless of my affiliation with ANSYS.

derrek

Thank Derrek.

I am still a little confused by what you wrote (you predicted it well!) which is probably due to the fact I do not know much about ICEM and their product names.

Please let me know if I have this correct:

(1) ICEM have previously released a preprocessor for CFX based on their HEXA Hexahedral capability.

(2) Ansys are likely to removed the Patran volume meshing functionality from CFX products and instead introduce ICEM TETRA & HEXA meshing functionality (which has already been done to some extent from point (1)).

Is ICEM meshing better than the existing CFX/Patran meshing?

[An CFD user interested in CFX]

You got it. ICEM meshing technology is leaps and bounds beyond the Patran capabilities.

derrek

Thanks Derrek.

[An CFD user interested in CFX]

I understand the entire CFX 4 staff in the UK is gone. Not sure if that is good or bad.

Hi,

I understand CFX is no longer developing CFX4. This would explain having no staff on it! The CFD development work is now focussed on CFX5.

Regards, Glenn

So it sounds like it was a good thing for CFX that they were terminated.