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Fluent Expands Asian Operations
As of January 1, 1999, Fluent has taken significant action to increase presence in the Asia- Pacific region. We have established a new Fluent subsidiary – Fluent Asia-Pacific, with offices in Tokyo and Osaka. This new office is headed by Mr. Atsushi Habu. He comes to us from Nihon Synopsys, the $100 million dollar Japanese subsidiary of the U.S. based Synopsys, Inc., a leading electronic design automation software and services provider. Fluent Asia-Pacific's staff, combined with existing distributorships in Taiwan, China, Korea, and Australia, represents a doubling of Fluent's presence in this important and growing market. "We have had a strong presence in Japan through distributorships and joint ventures for at least a decade," says Rick Sam, Fluent's Director of Special Operations.
"The establishment of Fluent Asia-Pacific gives us more direct control over business growth in the region and better resources to serve customers on a local scale. It also helps to facilitate more coordination between Fluent and our network of Far East distributors, which has doubled in the past year," he adds. Fluent Asia-Pacific provides full-service CFD software sales, consulting, and support. The Tokyo headquarters were recently moved to the 50th floor of the Shinjuku Center Building. This new facility has 5,000 square feet of space, which includes training and conference facilities in addition to staff work areas. The computational facilities have been enhanced with the addition of several multiprocessor workstations and servers. "The office is up and running, and successfully serving our Japanese customers and Eastern distributors," says Sam. "We are now in the process of developing a strategic marketing initiative to accelerate and expand our growth."
Fluent works with ERCOFTAC
The European Research Community On Flow Turbulence And Combustion (ERCOFTAC) based in Lausanne, Switzerland, is an organization that fosters collaboration among European universities, research institutes, and industry in the area of applied fluid mechanics. The ERCOFTAC membership includes many well-known European companies and a number of distinguished CFD research groups, such as those at UMIST in the United Kingdom and at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany.
Fluent is taking an active role on ERCOFTAC's Industrial Advisory Committee to ensure that the needs of Fluent users are represented. One interesting initiative is a project to create "best practice" guidelines for CFD users. The guidelines set out generic advice on how to carry out quality CFD calculations while taking account of the practical limitations of applying CFD to real-life industrial f lows. The guidelines will be tested by applying them to a set of cases ranging from simple benchmark problems to complex industrial configurations. The first of a series of industrial topic meetings, entitled "Simulation vs. Testing in Industrial Fluid Dynamics" will be in Florence, Italy, on October 26, 1999.
Swedish Office Opens
On March 26, Fluent opened a new office in Göteborg, Sweden. Göteborg was seen as an ideal location because of its strong CFD tradition in the automotive, turbomachinery and chemical industries. The event was attended by users of Fluent software from around the Göteborg region and representatives of the Göteborg Community Council, who welcomed Fluent to the area. Anders Jerhamre from Volvo provided a presentation on the applications of Fluent's CFD to the design of vehicles. Presentations were also given by Fluent Europe and the Fluent Sweden office manager, highlighting the strong growth of CFD and Fluent usage in Scandinavia.
The Swedish office will initially focus on software sales and training for customers in the Scandinavian countries. As the office grows, technical support and consulting will move from Fluent Europe to Sweden.
Fluent Deutschland Enters Plasma CVD Research Fluent Deutschland GmbH is a partner in a new joint research project, funded by the German government. Partners in the research project are DaimlerChrysler, the Institute for Low-Temperature Plasma Physics, and Eltro GmbH – a plasma plant manufacturer. The project will investigate plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (CVD) processes, with an overall goal of improving surface quality with respect to hardness, smoothness, and chemical inertness. It will include the development of experimental devices for monitoring the process along with development of the process itself. Fluent Deutschland's role in the project is to develop a validated tool for process scale-up based on FLUENT 5.
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