Easy-to-use Toolbox & GUI for CFD simulations.
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
Modeling and simulation fluid mechanics and hydrodynamics is a field which is becoming increasingly popular and important for research and engineering. With increasing computer performance and improved numerical methods, complex and advanced flow simulations are now possible even on home and laptop computers.
Some common and typical application areas include
- Flow in pipes and channels - Simulation of laminar and turbulent flows in pipes and ducts for design and optimization of HVAC systems and, oil and natural gas pipelines.
- Convection and heat transfer - Analysis of coupled flow and heat transfer processes is important in designing heat exchangers, fuel cells, and batteries in EV applications.
- Aerospace and automotive - Aerodynamic lift and drag resistance simulations, and automotive acoustic simulations to predict unwanted wind noise.
- Biomedical Applications - Modeling blood flow in arteries or airflow in the respiratory system, useful in medical research and biomechanics.
CFD Simulation Software
Performing complex fluid dynamics simulations has never been as easy and straightforward as with the FEATool Multiphysics software and toolbox. The built-in and dedicated graphical user interface (GUI) makes it very quick and simple to set up and solve complex computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation models.
The software features full support for most types of steady and instationary, laminar and turbulent, porous and non-Newtonian types of fluid mechanics, flow, and heat-transfer engineering problems. These types of simulations often appear in automotive and aerodynamics, hydraulic and hydrodynamic, chemical engineering and many more application areas.
Moreover, with the multiphysics capabilities, the pressure and flow fields can directly be coupled with different physical phenomena such as heat and mass transport, allowing for complex interactive fluid flow simulations as for example in multiphase and reactive flows. Also, with higher order built-in simulation schemes, sensitive quantities such as aerodynamic lift and drag forces can be evaluated with high accuracy.
Toolbox Features
- Fully integrated simulation and modeling GUI with preprocessing, automatic CFD mesh generation, solvers, and postprocessing and visualization
- Built-in high-order non-linear solvers for both stationary and time-dependent simulations
- Interfaces for the external solvers OpenFOAM, SU2, redbKIT, FEniCS (Firedrake)
- Pre-defined application modes for viscous incompressible fluid flows, compressible high Mach number flows, fluid-structure interaction, porous media flows, heat and mass transport
- Easily customizable equations and non-linear coefficients for non-Newtonian flows
- Extensively verified and validated (V&V) and compared against CFD benchmark test cases
- Available as stand-alone Desktop App, or as a MATLAB CFD toolbox with native script and programming API
Visualization of flow around a wing profile at different angles of attack.
CFDTool
In addition to the FEATool Multiphysics software, a simpler and more cost-effective toolbox, CFDTool, is also available. CFDTool simplifies flow modeling by just showing options for fluid flow and heat transfer, making it easier to get started with fluid dynamics simulations.
For more advanced users it is recommended to use FEATool, as the full toolbox supports all types of multiphysics couplings, custom equations, and also includes a full MATLAB scripting API.
CFD Solvers
FEATool Multiphysics includes built-in and pre-defined flow equations and CFD codes and solvers for viscous incompressible, compressible, non-Newtonian, porous media flows, and fluid-structure interaction. Moreover, the toolbox also comes with convenient one-click GUI interfaces to several state-of-the-art external CFD solvers OpenFOAM, SU2, and FEniCS.
This allows users to set up and define large scale high-performance fluid mechanics and heat transfer simulations directly from the user interface. The OpenFOAM GUI, SU2 and FEniCS solvers can then be used to perform parallel CFD simulations, as for example illustrated with the FEniCS-HPC simulation of flow over an aircraft wing.
Simulation and visualization courtesy of the fenics-hpc project.
Analysis Types
In addition to the built-in and pre-defined equations and physics modes for basic fluid mechanics, FEATool Multiphysics also supports a wide and extensive range of flow regimes and CFD simulations
- Steady state and dynamic instationary flows
- Incompressible viscous flows
- Compressible trans-sonic and supersonic flows
- Laminar and turbulent flows
- Non-isothermal (Boussinesq approximation)
- Flows with varying density and viscosity
- Flow through porous media
- Two-phase and multiphase flows
- Fluid-Structure interaction
- User-defined equations and PDE types
Multiphysics for Fluid Dynamics
The easy to use pre-defined flow equations and physics modes available in FEATool Multiphysics makes it easy to set up fully coupled and interacting flow problems in any space dimension.
- Heat and Mass Transfer
- Incompressible Flows
- Compressible Flows
- Flow in Porous Media
- Nonlinear Fluids
- Fluid-Structure Interaction
General nonlinear expressions and coefficients, can easily be incorporated including coupled dependent variables and derivatives. This allows users change and modify equations and to define complex equation coefficients, without learning any programming at all. It is as easy as simply typing in the expression just as written on paper. This can for example be used to quickly define non-Newtonian and non-isothermal fluids by modifying the density and viscosity expressions and to include temperature dependences.
Multi-solver simulation tutorial coupling the OpenFOAM CFD solver with the heat transfer FEA solver from the FEATool Multiphysis.
Computational Fluid Dynamics Tutorials
FEATool Multiphysics makes it especially easy and convenient to learn CFD software and simulation with many built-in and automated step-by-step flow modeling tutorials available directly from the toolbox. You can get started very quickly by selecting one of the examples from
Model Examples and Tutorials... > Fluid Dynamics
in the File menu of the main GUI window. A selection of fluid dynamics CFD models are also presented in the model gallery linked below.