December 17, 2001, Lebanon, New Hampshire…Fluent Inc., the world's leading computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software provider, announces the release of FLUENT 6.0. A new set of features in this version specifically address the needs of HVAC engineers using CFD to build and test virtual prototypes of their designs for fans, pumps, compressors, indoor air quality, duct and environmental flows, heat exchangers, appliances, and many other applications.

FLUENT 6.0 is a major update of the world's most commonly used CFD software. The software's popularity has been built on its ease-of-use, modeling versatility, and flexible unstructured meshing technology, which enables engineers to quickly build virtual prototypes which accurately reflect reality. Advances applying to the HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) industry largely address important applications such as rotating machinery, internal and external airflow, heat transfer, and phase change.

Fast Fan and Pump Curves

Several new features in this version are specifically focused on the modeling of rotating equipment, and can be applied to fans, pumps, and compressor design. First, rotating machinery-specific panels let the user easily calculate key integral quantities like torque and efficiency, create plots on meridional, pitchwise, and spanwise cuts, and automatically display plots of circumferentially-averaged flow parameters. Second, improvements in Fluent's mixing plane model and implementation of non-reflecting boundary conditions provide improved accuracy and robustness for multistage machines. Finally, a specialized rotating machinery model set-up tool, G/Turbo™, is also now available from Fluent for performing fast, automated model set-up.

Thermal Comfort and Pollutant Dispersion

With FLUENT 6.0, engineers can predict flows within interior spaces such as rooms, offices, cleanrooms, and laboratories. The presence of screens, vents, fans, and diffusers can be included in the analysis. This sophisticated capability is being used today for indoor air quality and thermal comfort studies, as well as for predicting pollutant dispersion in safety analyses.

Environmental Flows

Improvements in Fluent 6.0's turbulence models and unsteady flow algorithms will favorably impact such environmental flow applications as emissions from smoke stacks and power plant cooling towers, and wind load calculations on buildings and other structures.

Heat Transfer and Phase Change

With a full suite of models to address all forms of heat transfer, FLUENT 6.0 can perform complex, multimode thermal analyses for applications such as heat exchangers, natural convection heating and cooling, and solar energy. New advanced capabilities for handling phase change prediction are ideal for application to HVAC engineering problems involving melting or freezing (e.g. ice formation).

Multiphase Flows

Fluent 6.0 provides the HVAC industry with best-in-class capabilities for multiphase flows. Users can now activate sophisticated models for applications involving general gas-liquid flows, bubble and droplet modeling, free surface flows, cavitation, particle-laden flows and more. Applications benefiting from this technology include refrigeration systems, chillers, consumer appliances, water heaters, and air handling units.

Speed Multiplies with Parallel Processing

FLUENT's near-linear scaling during parallel processing has been head and shoulders above other general purpose CFD software, and this position is further advanced with FLUENT 6.0, where dynamic load balancing and other advanced features enable users to easily distribute their FLUENT problems across a network of UNIX, Linux, or NT processors for faster turnaround of results.

Usability Enhancements

FLUENT 6.0 offers a new set of options for postprocessing and visualization, such as automatic generation of animations. Results can be output in VRML format, which enables the user to send three-dimensional images of results across the Web for remote viewing, where the receiver can change views, zoom in/out, and rotate the image.

Pricing and Availability

FLUENT 6.0 is available on UNIX, NT, and Linux platforms. It is provided at no additional cost to all current FLUENT users who have chosen to purchase upgrades along with their FLUENT license. FLUENT license fees are determined by the number of processes that a user requires. Annual license fees include unlimited technical support.

About Fluent

Fluent is the world's largest provider of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software and consulting services. Fluent's software is used for simulation, visualization, and prediction of fluid flow, heat and mass transfer, and chemical reactions. It is a vital part of the computer-aided engineering (CAE) process for companies around the world and in almost every manufacturing industry. Using Fluent's software, product development, design and research engineers build virtual prototypes and simulate the performance of proposed and existing designs, which helps them to optimize, troubleshoot, scale-up, and retrofit. Use of CFD software reduces time-to-market by reducing the need for costly physical testing and prototyping.

Fluent's corporate headquarters are located in Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA. Fluent's European headquarters are located in Sheffield, England, with local offices in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden. Fluent's Asia Pacific headquarters are located in Tokyo, Japan. Its CFD software is also available around the world through joint ventures, partnerships, and distributors in Korea, Australia, Brazil, China, Taiwan, the Czech Republic, Middle East, and most European countries.

Fluent is a subsidiary of Aavid Thermal Technologies Inc. Additional information on Fluent's products can be obtained on the World Wide Web at www.fluent.com or by e-mailing info@fluent.com. More information on Aavid Thermal Technologies is available at www.aavid.com.

FLUENT® and GAMBIT® are registered trademarks of Fluent Inc.
G/Turbo™ is a trademark of Fluent Inc.

For more information, contact:

Jennifer Correa
Fluent Inc.
10 Cavendish Court
Lebanon, NH 03766
(603) 643-2600 Ext. 668
jrc@fluent.com