Fluent's 1998 worldwide Users' Group Meetings included nine regional events held in the USA, Italy, France, Germany, England, Sweden, Japan, Korea and the Czech Republic. Worldwide attendance grew substantially, with 200 attendees in the US, 350 attendees in Europe, and 200 attendees at the meetings in Japan and Korea. The season concludes with a meeting in Australia in November.

By minimizing travel and using the local language for presentation, this impressive worldwide circuit is designed to give our users the best possible access to a forum uniquely focused on their professional interests. Thanks go out to all who attended and contributed to these valuable events.

Products and Presentations

Demonstrations and presentations highlighted the 1998 new product releases of FLUENT, FIDAP, and GAMBIT at each of the regional meetings. Poster presentations, from Fluent staff and from users, showcased a variety of high-end CFD applications. Rated "most useful" by many attendees, the application presentations by users continue to define the state-of-the-art in applied CFD. Selected presentations are summarized beginning on page 4. Complete proceedings and individual papers can be obtained by contacting Fluent Inc.

Gathering Feedback

Open forum sessions, held at each meeting, offered users a chance to contribute valuable input on Fluent's organization and product directions. Ideas collected ranged from specific user interface suggestions to complex physical modeling requirements and CAD data integration needs. Feedback on the meetings was also collected and will go into refining the content and organization of the 1999 meetings.

Hardware Partner Contributions

Fluent's close collaboration with the major providers of hardware and synergistic software was also visible at the meetings. At the US meeting, third parties participated in an exhibit of the latest hardware and software of interest to CFD users. SGI sponsored the lakeside dinner-picnic at the US conference and HP provided 20 workstations for hands-on training on our new preprocessor. SGI, SUN, and HP sponsored the UK meeting, with a champagne reception and prize drawing by HP. SGI and HP were also co-sponsors of the German meeting, providing computers for demonstrations. These and other contributions underline the value our partners place on users of Fluent products as the community driving and defining high-performance computing.

1999 Meeting Dates

Plans are already underway for 1999. Meeting dates in the US are set for the week of May 24, 1999, in Danvers, Massachusetts. Watch for announcements in the mail, in the Spring edition of FluentNews, and on the web at www.fluent.com.

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