Autodesk® CFD 2017 contains several new features and functional updates designed to improve the modeling process, simulation fidelity, and the overall user experience.
Results Visualization
Custom Result Quantities
You can now create custom, derived result quantities to analyze and visualize quantities critical to your application. You can create quantities based on standard CFD field variables and choose from various functions to create your equations. You can re-use your custom result quantities in subsequent sessions and the quantities are available in Decision Center.
For more about Custom Result Quantities...Particle Traces
Achieve compelling flow visualizations more quickly and efficiently using the improved particle traces workflow. You can now activate particle traces directly from the Results tab and access many of the associated commands in the ribbon. Take advantage of the improved seeding features to easily customize your results and maximize the impact of your presentations.
Iso Volumes
Use Iso Volumes to view results as volumes between minimum and maximum values. Similar to Iso Surfaces, Iso Volumes are useful for visualizing and presenting complicated flow results, as well as temperature distributions, from your simulations.
Updated Results Workflows, including the Design Study Bar
Previously, you typically had to move between features on the model, ribbon, and Design Study bar as integral parts of your results workflow. You can now achieve the same results using complete workflows on the model, ribbon, or design tree. Use the workflow with which you are most comfortable to efficiently achieve analysis results.
Modeling
Wall Layers
Enhancement Layers are now called Wall Layers. This is only a terminology change - the associated functionality remains the same.
For more about Wall Layers...Heat Exchanger Humidity
You can now account for humidifying and dehumidifying processes with your heat exchanger material.
Meshing for Surface Wrapped and Faceted (STL) Models
A new meshing workflow was introduced specifically for models that are surface wrapped. This procedure is similar to the procedure for meshing models imported directly from CAD systems. The requirements and guidelines for generating a quality mesh suitable for simulation are the same. The biggest difference is the arrangement of some of the controls for controlling and refining the mesh distribution and some of the nomenclature has been modified for clarity.
For more about Meshing Surface Wrapped and Faceted models...
Model Assessment Toolkit
Updates in the Part Gap and Model Gap assessments result in faster analyses, on the order of 5X and 20X improvements in speed, respectively.
Surface Wrapping
The surface wrap tool, introduced as a standalone application with CFD 2016, is now integrated into the CFD 2017 application. You can read your model directly into Surface Wrap or go through the Model Assessment Toolkit first. Use Surface Wrap to easily generate CFD-quality external meshes without extensive CAD clean-up.
For more about Surface Wrapping...Hydrostatic Pressure
For most flow simulations in Autodesk® CFD, we neglect the weight of the column of liquid in determining the pressure distribution. For cases in which this weight is important, particularly when the fluid is at rest or when moving at a constant velocity, you can now enable Hydrostatic Pressure on the Solve dialog.
New Solver Technology
In CFD 2016, a new solver called "CFD2" was developed and made available with limited functionality. You can now fully access this new solver, denoted as the "Scalable Solver," when you select the Solver Computers for your analysis.
The Scalable Solver is designed specifically for large simulations containing on the order of 30 to 50 million elements and enables each process to run on multiple threads as a process/thread hybrid. The Scalable Solver is designed to optimize cache performance and has shown significant solution time speedup for large models when using multiple compute nodes. The performance for smaller models on a single compute node is comparable to the default or "Classic" CFD solver.
User Interface
Improvements to the Cloning Workflow
When you clone a design in Autodesk CFD 2017, you can select which scenarios from the design are to be cloned as well. This is especially useful for designs containing a large of scenarios if you only want to clone a subset of the scenarios. Additionally, you can indicate if you want to include the mesh and results in addition to the geometry and settings. This saves time if you plan on making changes to the geometry which will result in the generation of a new mesh.
Customer Involvement
In an effort to better obtain your input, Autodesk® has eliminated the Customer Involvement Program (CIP) and enhanced the Desktop Analytics Program. Your participation in the Desktop Analytics Program is valuable as we plan for future Autodesk® CFD releases.
For more about the Desktop Analytics Program...Image Resolution
Set the resolution for saved static images and animation files. Click
Results
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View Tools
A new Visual Style, Material Based, displays solid parts as solids and fluid parts as transparent. This allows for easier interpretation of the model.
A Global Axis was added to the modeling environment. This improves visibility to the model orientation, independent of how close or how far you are zoomed into the model.
A visual scale was added to the modeling environment to help provide feedback about the physical length of the model.
Default Units changed to "cm" when launching with a CAD or Geometry File
When launching a CFD analysis using a CAD model file or a geometry file such as Acis or Parasolid, the default model length unit in Autodesk® CFD 2017 is centimeters (cm). In previous versions, the default model length unit was meter. If the Startup Length Units on the Preferences dialog is set to a different system, the selected system becomes the default.