Comparing ANSYS FLUENT and Matlab for flow simulations

serguei · July 13, 2017, 19:04

Hello all,
I am have some experience on ANSYS FLUENT, but never work on Matlab for flow simulations. May anybody to give some comparing between FLUENT Matlab with QuickerSim CFD tool box. What are the limitations latter, compare with FLUENT? What software is easy in use? What are generally advances and disadvances for each?
thank you

sbaffini · July 14, 2017, 10:01

I do not know the resons which led the development of QuickerSim nor how it is specifically implemented (is it precompiled in mex file and simply offered a GUI in matlab or a pure matlab implementation?), but you can't compare Fluent with Matlab.

Everything compute intensive (multiple cycles of millions updates) is not, from a computational science and software engineering point of view, well suited for a pure Matlab implementation. And even visualization of medium sized stuff is really annoying in matlab.

The point is that you are just adding one or multiple additional software layers. This can be commercially justified only if it is a requirement form the client side (e.g., users of Matlab requiring some CFD in a much larger context). And even in that case, such interfaces should be really kept at their minimum.

Fluent is a bare metal (C) implementation of everything, from the visualization to the mesh generation, solvers and GUI. It is designed from scratch for one very purpose and scales to thousands of processors. This comes with a certain price. Basically, you can consider it a de facto industry standard in CFD.

Now, even if Quickersim has a revolutionary implementation (which I strongly doubt), you are really comparing oranges and apples here. I see they do visualizations in Matlab (which is the most obvious choice when using Matlab), which in 3D just become nightmares.

This seems to be clerly reflected also in their price tags:

http://www.quickersim.com/cfd-toolbo...b/pricing.html

which, however, seem justified only for someone really needing exactly their product and not a CFD solver in general.

Model availability is also another difference to take into account.

As final suggestion:

- you need something to play CFD (non-commercial use)? Fluent has a free version which learning to use has a clear return on investment.

- you need to do some paid, serious CFD (commercial use)? Evaluate solutions which can scale with your business (not necessarily Fluent, of course).

- you need a CFD solution seemlessly integrated with a Matlab workflow? Quickersim seems to be a solution, but others exist as well (comsol). So compare the available ones.

- you need something at the educational level? QuickerSim might still work, but compare it with other free solutions still based on matlab.

July 13, 2017, 19:04	Comparing ANSYS FLUENT and Matlab for flow simulations	#1
serguei Member Serguei Join Date: Mar 2015 Posts: 33 Rep Power: 11	Hello all, I am have some experience on ANSYS FLUENT, but never work on Matlab for flow simulations. May anybody to give some comparing between FLUENT Matlab with QuickerSim CFD tool box. What are the limitations latter, compare with FLUENT? What software is easy in use? What are generally advances and disadvances for each? thank you

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July 14, 2017, 10:01		#2
sbaffini Senior Member Paolo Lampitella Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Italy Posts: 2,195 Blog Entries: 29 Rep Power: 39	I do not know the resons which led the development of QuickerSim nor how it is specifically implemented (is it precompiled in mex file and simply offered a GUI in matlab or a pure matlab implementation?), but you can't compare Fluent with Matlab. Everything compute intensive (multiple cycles of millions updates) is not, from a computational science and software engineering point of view, well suited for a pure Matlab implementation. And even visualization of medium sized stuff is really annoying in matlab. The point is that you are just adding one or multiple additional software layers. This can be commercially justified only if it is a requirement form the client side (e.g., users of Matlab requiring some CFD in a much larger context). And even in that case, such interfaces should be really kept at their minimum. Fluent is a bare metal (C) implementation of everything, from the visualization to the mesh generation, solvers and GUI. It is designed from scratch for one very purpose and scales to thousands of processors. This comes with a certain price. Basically, you can consider it a de facto industry standard in CFD. Now, even if Quickersim has a revolutionary implementation (which I strongly doubt), you are really comparing oranges and apples here. I see they do visualizations in Matlab (which is the most obvious choice when using Matlab), which in 3D just become nightmares. This seems to be clerly reflected also in their price tags: http://www.quickersim.com/cfd-toolbo...b/pricing.html which, however, seem justified only for someone really needing exactly their product and not a CFD solver in general. Model availability is also another difference to take into account. As final suggestion: - you need something to play CFD (non-commercial use)? Fluent has a free version which learning to use has a clear return on investment. - you need to do some paid, serious CFD (commercial use)? Evaluate solutions which can scale with your business (not necessarily Fluent, of course). - you need a CFD solution seemlessly integrated with a Matlab workflow? Quickersim seems to be a solution, but others exist as well (comsol). So compare the available ones. - you need something at the educational level? QuickerSim might still work, but compare it with other free solutions still based on matlab.