Industry Summary Articles

Mentor, a Siemens business, today announced the latest release of the FloMASTER® 1D thermo-fluid system modeling product. Combining integration with 3D mechanical computer-aided design (MCAD) with new physics and an improved user experience, the latest release of the FloMASTER tool is the result of extensive years of research and development, and accuracy validated by running more than 13 million unit test runs. The new FloMASTER release offers significant advancements in productivity through automated connectivity to 3D CAD design tools. The new "CAD-to-FloMASTER" (CAD2FM) functionality enables design engineers to rapidly create representations of their 3D systems. CAD2FM automatically abstracts the 3D descriptions of piping networks into a collection of connected FloMASTER components, reducing manual, labor-intensive and error-prone measure and re-enter methods.

"With the new CAD2FM capability in the FloMASTER release, we managed to massively speed up the conversion process of our piping systems from a 3D MCAD model to a system model," stated Stefano Morlacchi, CFD solution specialist, CADLOG. "We achieved this while still maintaining the accuracy of a fully-detailed FloMASTER network with all pipes, bend and junctions defined."

The highly automated workflow allows users to control the fidelity level of the abstracted models and the number of FloMASTER components created to represent the piping geometry for efficient thermo-fluid simulation. This new one-touch workflow is available in a standalone version, as well as integrated within PTC Creo, Dassault CATIA V5, and Siemens NX™ software and Solid Edge® software CAD tools. 

In addition, the FloMASTER release includes new functionality for air conditioning (AC) systems. Enhancements have been made to the FloMASTER Enthalpy Solver and 14 new components added to the Vapour Cycle (VC) component library. These enhancements enable AC systems to be modelled and simulated for a wide range of use cases, from traditional automotive and building systems, to complex, multi-component and multi-loop systems for aerospace and advanced electrical vehicle (EV) cooling applications.  By leveraging both the new AC developments and the existing VC components, several advanced thermodynamic cycles can be investigated including (but not limited to) Trilateral Flash Cycles, Trans-critical Rankine Cycles, and advanced multi stage cycles. Using these powerful engineering components, designs can be quickly and easily created at the earliest stage possible, enabling accurate and quick system level design exploration.

The FloMASTER release also enhances the user experience through a number of new and improved features that offer improved result processing while facilitating common operations. In this framework, a new results dashboard is available as a quick reference tool to monitor critical results for transient simulations. A new gas turbine cavity result viewer provides the user with all results of a cavity in a single location.  In addition, output parameters have been enhanced to allow the user to quickly view the result at the end of the simulation, while the addition of schematic annotation allows users to highlight areas of interest and improve system understanding.

"Our new FloMASTER release provides feature-rich capabilities that deliver the accuracy, flexibility, and speed that address many key areas important to our customers, including those in today's highly competitive automotive systems market," stated Roland Feldhinkel, general manager of Mentor Graphics' Mechanical Analysis Division, now part of Siemens PLM Software's simulation and test division.  "Leveraging our extensive knowledge and expertise in 1D and 3D mechanical analysis, our new 1D/3D CAD import tool represents a step change in automation that will significantly benefit our customers."

Product Availability
The new FloMASTER product is available today. To learn more, visit the product website at: https://www.mentor.com/products/mechanical/flomaster/  

To view the original press release, please click here.

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