New York, London and Paris. May 25, 2010.

CD-adapco is pleased to announce that, CD-adapco’s industry leading simulation tool, STAR-CCM+, now includes a direct link to Abaqus FEA from SIMULIA, delivering fully coupled, two-way, fluid-structure interaction (FSI).

From the bending of a tree’s branch in the wind to the flutter of an aircraft wing as it crossed the Atlantic, fluids and solids interact in harmony everywhere in the real world. However, in the virtual world of engineering simulation, the picture has rarely been quite so harmonious. Structural analysis and fluid dynamics, although intrinsically linked, have long been quite separate disciplines with the interaction between deforming structures and flowing fluids only being considered at a most basic level.

The first products available for FSI simulations were often prohibitively expensive, in terms of computer resources and timescales, and relied upon third-party inter-code communication that had to be specifically configured for each new scenario.  For these reasons, the numerical simulation of FSI problems has traditionally been the preserve of research projects and academic studies, operating outside of the main engineering design process.

Not anymore. For the first time, CD-adapco’s industry leading simulation tool, STAR-CCM+, will have a direct link to Abaqus FEA, delivering fully coupled, two-way, fluid-structure interaction.  Using direct co-simulation coupling provides efficiency and reduced overhead associated with things such as data transfer through file exchanges or use of external middleware software. This will make coupled fluid-structure-thermal calculations a regular part of the engineering design process.

“This direct co-simulation coupling is possible because of the strong partnership between CD-adapco and SIMULIA,” said CD-adapco Senior VP of Operations Dr. Bill Clark.  “By working closely with SIMULIA, we have managed to create a tool that, for the first time, brings best-in-class coupled fluid-structure interaction within the reach of a typical engineer.”

“Our partnership with CD-adapco is a key part of our commitment to provide our mutual customers with a coupled multiphysics solution that helps them gain deeper understanding of their products’ real-world product behavior earlier in their development cycle,” stated Steve Levine, Chief Strategy Officer, SIMULIA, Dassault Systèmes. “SIMULIA is committed to developing new and improved direct co-simulation solutions that enable our valued partners such as CD-adapco to help their customers reduce time and costs of delivering highest quality products to market possible.”

CD-adapco’s partnership with SIMULIA also means that setting up and running the problem may all be done within the easy-to-use STAR-CCM+ environment, with no need for writing scripts and input files or mapping data. Simply point STAR-CCM+ at the Abaqus job you want to run and press “Go.” The powerful physics of both codes may be leveraged in coupled FSI with STAR-CCM+’s full range of available models, providing the ability to study coupled, single and multiphase flows, chemical reaction and combustion as well as flow regimes from low speed to hypersonic. The options available in Abaqus are similarly broad, with coupled simulation supported for static stress/displacement, dynamics (implicit and explicit), heat transfer, temperature-displacement, thermal-electrical and piezoelectric analysis.

Put simply, the close-coupling between STAR-CCM+ and Abaqus brings the solution of a wide range of FSI problems within the easy reach of a typical engineer. In terms of both practicality and accuracy, co-simulation (in which both codes exchange data as they simultaneously run) is the only way to tackle problems such as aerodynamic flutter, fluid induced bending, vortex induced vibration and galloping.

About Abaqus Unified FEA

The Abaqus Unified FEA product suite offers powerful and complete solutions for both routine and sophisticated engineering problems, covering a vast spectrum of industrial applications. In the automotive industry, engineering work groups are able to consider full vehicle loads, dynamic vibration, multibody systems, impact/crash, nonlinear static, thermal coupling, and acoustic-structural coupling using a common model data structure and integrated solver technology. The Abaqus Unified FEA product suite is developed and distributed by SIMULIA, the Dassault Systemes brand for Realistic Simulation. For further information, see the SIMULIA website ( www.simulia.com).

About STAR-CCM+

STAR-CCM+ is a process-oriented CAE tool that delivers the entire engineering simulation workflow in a single integrated software environment—from geometry creation to engineering solution. In addition to state-of-the-art surface preparation and volume meshing tools, it provides a wide range of models and methods for simulating fluid flow, turbulence, chemical reactions and combustion, multiphase flow, dynamic fluid body interaction and other phenomena. STAR-CCM+ is developed and distributed by CD-adapco. For further information, see the CD-adapco website ( www.cd-adapco.com).