Fluent Releases Version 3.8 of Its POLYFLOW Software New Version of This Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Software for Polymers Widens Its Scope and Improves Usability October 12, 2000, Lebanon, NH - Fluent Inc., the leading provider of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software, announces the release of POLYFLOW 3.8. This software is uniquely suited to simulate flow, heat transfer, and chemical reaction in polymers and materials with similar properties, such as plastic, rubber, glass, food, and other consumer products. It is used by engineers and analysts as a virtual prototyping tool for quickly and effectively improving product and equipment designs. According to Thierry Marchal, POLYFLOW Product Manager, "POLYFLOW 3.8 was designed with our users to address their immediate requests. In addition to significant enhancements to the user-friendliness, we are proud to enter a new era of numerical simulation: the expert system. This solution management tool interacts with the users during the problem setup and simulation to ensure a solution as robust and fast as possible." New Capabilities in Blow Molding In response to a critical need from the plastics blow molding and glass industries regarding the production of bottles, a feature in POLYFLOW 3.8 allows for computational coupling between the flow of the formed material, such as plastics or glass, and the heat conduction inside the mold. This coupling strongly improves the accuracy of the predicted temperature profile inside the formed product. POLYFLOW 3.8 also allows for comprehensive study of the extrusion blow molding process by enabling the user to read the data from the extrusion simulation into a subsequent blow molding simulation. Easier to Use The new graphics engine in POLYFLOW 3.8 provides high image quality and quick image refreshment. The process of building and manipulating the model is mouse-driven and intuitive. The Expert System diagnostic tool supervises both the setup of the problem and its execution and gives recommendations on how to speed-up the convergence of the problem. For additional ease in model building, POLYFLOW 3.8 now supports the pyramid meshing element. This element enables users to take advantage of the automatic meshing capabilities in POLYFLOW, dramatically reducing the work for modeling and meshing complex shapes, such as PVC window profiles or rubber profile dies. POLYFLOW 3.8 includes an interface with M-Base Engineering + Software's CAMPUS Merge Program. Users can export material properties for flow simulation directly into POLYFLOW through this interface. Properties of over 6000 materials are available in the current CAMPUS database and more are planned for inclusion in later releases. This gives users the advantage of direct access to the world's leading plastics information system -- ensuring high quality and comparable data based on international standards. In addition, this eliminates the need for users to manually convert material data. Pricing and Availability POLYFLOW 3.8 is now available for UNIX and PC platforms. Annual license fees are inclusive of software and unlimited technical support. About Fluent and Polyflow Fluent Inc. is a world leader in the rapidly growing field of computerized design and simulation software. Fluent's software is used to predict fluid flow, heat and mass transfer, chemical reaction, and related phenomena. Fluent's software products and services help engineers in leading corporations worldwide with detailed product development, design optimization, trouble shooting, scale-up and retrofitting. Fluent's software significantly reduces engineering cost, while improving the final design of products in applications ranging from design of electronic components and systems to automotive engineering, and from combustion system design to process plant troubleshooting. Fluent's corporate headquarters are located in Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA. Fluent's European headquarters are located in Sheffield, England, with local offices in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and Belgium. Fluent's CFD software is also available around the world through joint ventures, partnerships, and distributors in Korea, Australia, Brazil, China, Taiwan, the Czech Republic, 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. Polyflow S.A., a subsidiary of Fluent, is located in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, and maintains sales and technical support offices in Lebanon, New Hampshire (USA), Tokyo, and Seoul. POLYFLOW leads the field in simulations of complex materials processing in industrial flows where viscous and viscoelastic flows play a major role. This is typical of the polymer, glass, and food processing industries as well as other industries processing complex rheology fluids. POLYFLOW is oriented toward industrial applications and is committed to providing value-added solutions to the design and understanding of the processes. POLYFLOW is used worldwide by leading companies for process and product development and for design optimization. More information on POLYFLOW is available at www.fluent.com/software/polyflow. For More Information Contact: Jennifer Correa Fluent Inc. 10 Cavendish Court Lebanon, NH 03766 (603) 643-2600 Ext. 668 jrc@fluent.com