FloTHERM XT users will be happy to know that sliding meshes and design of experiments (DoE) functionality are now possible in the latest release.
The electronics cooling simulation software from Mentor Graphics gives engineers the power of electronic design automation, mechanical design automation and simulation for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and thermal dynamics.
“FloTHERM XT will allow our customers to verify and prototype their designs with greater ease and confidence,” said Roland Feldhinkel, general manager at Mentor Graphics. “These new features are vital for electronics systems designers who are creating innovative, high performance products for the transportation, mil-aero and automotive industries.”
The latest release focused on a lot of user feedback showing a desire to work on more complex geometries. For example, one update comes to FloTHERM XT’s parametric studies capabilities with the addition of DoE functionality. The tool lets users define the number of studies through which the software will procedurally run. Using the results, the software can then give the user an idea of which variable affects the design the most and by how much.
This DoE tool might get some users worried that their workstation or high performance computing might get bogged down with such a feature. However, Mentor has explained that the DoE tool can send some of the number crunching to CPUs that are standing idle if the machines are connected.
The new release can also incorporate rotating parts into the simulation using a sliding mesh. This will help those hoping to simulate systems that contain electronic components with fans, generators, motors, wheels and/or other rotors.
“When we switched to FloTHERM XT from our previous CFD tool, we cut our analysis time in half,” explained Tim Fleury, manager at Mercury Systems, Inc. “Even with increasingly accelerated development schedules, we have time to perform trade-off studies to optimize the thermal design. The CAD import and adaptive meshing combination feature in this new FloTHERM XT release is paramount.”
Other key new features of FloTHERM XT include:
- Temperature-dependent power simulations in which the software adjusts the power of an object based on its temperature
- Thermal territory simulations that represent heat transfer away from components by modeling the copper between them
- The ability to import files through the FloEDA Bridge module or by a neutral file format.
To learn about interesting FloTHERM XT applications, read “CFD Can Do More Than Optimize Aerodynamics for a Greener Car.”