Mentor Graphics Corp. announced its next-generation FloTHERM® product featuring a new native Windows graphical user interface (GUI) to handle pre-processing and large models with ease, targeting today’s most advanced electronic designs. The latest release continues the product line’s 25 year history of technical product innovation and was developed based on extensive user feedback.
The new FloTHERM product was developed from user feedback via the company’s IDEAS website, soliciting requests on software enhancements and features that Mentor customers recommended and voted on as the most popular. Over 40 IDEAS requests were fulfilled, resulting in the new Windows-compliant GUI, parallel CFD solver and efficient handling of massive models for pre-processing, solving and post-processing.
“As one of the first FloTHERM users, I’ve always been happy with the speed of FloTHERM’s solver, especially when handling large models,” said Ir Clemens Lasance, Philips Research Emeritus. “Nevertheless, improvements are always welcome when we talk hours of CPU time and hence, I was pleasantly surprised when I tested this new version of FloTHERM. The scale-up that has been achieved was at least a factor of four on my computer with a dual processor, reducing the solution time from six hours to one-and-a-half for a specific project requiring two million cells.”
New FloTHERM product capabilities include:
- The new Windows-compliant user interface can handle models with thousands of objects. A query-based search function, together with data columns integrated with the model node tree, provides critical model checking capabilities to define data, identify errors and to further enhance the FloTHERM user experience.
- A new parallel solver provides scalability and fast performance for multi-processors. This capability was the #1 requested functionality from the Mentor customer-feedback portal, and makes this FloTHERM release on average two to three times, and up to 14 times, faster than previous versions.
- The addition of new modeling objects to represent racks of equipment and data center cooling devices enables users to simulate and optimize everything from a chip to an entire room.
- The transient thermostatic control modeling functionality allows model inputs to be varied in time and as a function of the temperature during a transient simulation. A key benefit from this feature is the ability to reduce component power dissipation, either the component’s own temperature, or those from external stimuli. Customers involved with thermostatic control systems, such as consumer electronics, computing and hand-held telephony and tablets find this new functionality helpful.
- The FloTHERM product now also supports fluid-structure interaction through a mesh-based parallel code coupling interface (MpCCI) bridge developed at the Fraunhofer Institute SCAI. Now engineers can export CFD analysis data for finite element analysis (FEA) with a wide range of popular structural simulation programs thereby enabling users to conduct multi-disciplinary analyses.
“Our market-leading FloTHERM technology was established 25 years ago and clearly demonstrates our ongoing commitment to customers by continuing to innovate and provide solutions that they need and want,” stated Roland Feldhinkel, product line director, Mentor Graphics Mechanical Analysis Division. “By providing an intuitive Windows-based GUI and advanced features, we are delivering a dynamic solution that will increase user productivity and enable the development of innovative products. This is truly the next generation of the world’s most popular electronics cooling solution.”
