[Bldg-sim] CFD Software for Built Environment

[Claire Das Bhaumik]

Any idea about ANSYS CFX?

 

ANSYS own both codes now and tell me that CFX can do everything that
Fluent can do and recommended it to me really in preference to Fluent
for building applications. What's the difference?

 

Thanks,

Claire

 

From: bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org
[mailto:bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Paul Carey
Sent: 10 September 2008 15:25
To: 'antixs antixs'
Cc: bldg-sim at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: Re: [Bldg-sim] CFD Software for Built Environment

 

Antixs, et al

 

Airpak is okay and is perfectly adapted to HVAC applications as it
includes fan details, etc allowing you introduce swirl, etc.  It is
expensive for what you get though.  It has improved, but the gridding
was fairly rough and ready if you get complex geometry and can throw a
wobbly if you are doing external flow analysis for things like
pedestrian comfort assessments where you could need large variance in
your grid cell size.  If you are doing rooms, etc you'll be fine.  I'd
agree with Kai's comments though.

 

Not used FloVent.  It's quite pretty from memory, it's outputs are well
suited to HVAC work and make the whole CFD (Colour For Directors) stand
up. Whether it is good for complex analysis I'm not sure and will have
to leave that to others to comment on.

 

CHAM's flair is HVAC specific and there is even a link with Hevacomp so
if you've done your room calculations in that then there is a reduced
version which will let you do some basic flow analysis.  

 

The problem with most of these simplified tools however tends to be the
gridding which has a tendancy to let them down and so convergence of
solutions can be hard to achieve.  It really does depend on what you are
going to use it for and what sort of problems.

 

Sorry about copying your message below to the list Kai, but I think
others will lose the thinking of the thread and my comments as well,
hope you don't mind.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

 

 

From: Kang, Kai [mailto:Kai.Kang at jacobs.com] 
Sent: 10 September 2008 14:52
To: antixs antixs; Paul Carey
Subject: RE: [Bldg-sim] CFD Software for Built Environment

Antixs, 

 

Both Airpak and Flovent are customized CFD programs for building HVAC
applications.  Airpak wraps around the basic Fluent solver, and provides
a user-interface that is much more geared towards building engineers, as
well as some additional functions that is only available with Airpak,
such as solar heat gain.  

 

I have some experience with Airpak a while ago, being a Fluent user for
many years, I did not find any problem of learning the program and will
say an engineer without prior experience should be able to pick up the
modeling pretty quickly - the problem, however, is that if there is any
issue with the model, such as if the solution is diverging, it is very
difficult to "debug" the model in Airpak.  I assume the same would be
for Flovent, so in essence I would say they provide the easiness in
"cookie-cutter" applications. 

 

I am not copying this to the entire mailing list, as I may be talking a
bit too specific. 

 

 

Regards,

Kai

 

________________________________

From: antixs antixs [mailto:antixs.antixs at gmail.com] 
Sent: 10 September 2008 14:36
To: Paul Carey
Cc: bldg-sim at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: Re: [Bldg-sim] CFD Software for Built Environment

Paul,
Thanks for such detailed information! They are really helpful. Do you
have any experience with Airpak and Flovent? Heard that these two tools
are specially tailored for built environment.

Thanks again.

antixs

On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 4:39 PM, Paul Carey <Paul at zed-uk.com> wrote:

Antixs

 

I think this depends largely on your budget and proficiency.

 

If you want to go full on with CFD, then I'd suggest Fluent
(http://www.fluent.com/) everyday.  It is very widely used and well
trusted tool.  ICEM is a good meshing tool, but we like Pointwise and
Gridgen for it's meshing simplicity.

 

Other than that, I know CCM+ from CD-Adapco (http://www.cd-adapco.com/)
is very good too.  Makes the job quite easy.  These tools are very
expensive though.

 

If you want the same sort of capability and are willing to use mainly
text input then I'd suggest OpenFoam (http://www.openfoam.org) - a very
powerful open source CFD tool.  You could use something like pointwise
to mesh it, output a fluent case file and then openfoam has it's own
fluent case file converter program which you could use to then convert
it and process it.  You'd probably need a decent post processor too, but
clearly then you are only paying for those programs as openfoam itself
is free.    If you can do it all by text then you wouldn't need to pay
anything at all.  It will require you to use Linux though.  I saw a
pre-compiled bootable live CD distro of this recently which was quite
impressive so it allows you to check it out just by inserting CD into
computer and booting to it.  The link for that is:
http://www.caelinux.com/CMS/

 

 

Of the cheaper and possibly more usable programs for quick built
environment analysis.  Cham Pheonics (http://www.cham.co.uk/)  is good
value for money.  It's Flair add on is pretty simple to use.  I'd still
personally get a good CAD program to make sure your geometry is spot on
before importing it, but then it would do the job well.  A lot of
companies use it becasue of it's relative simplicity and good price.

 

Another which is aimed at non-CFD experts is DesignBuilder CFD
(http://www.designbuilder.co.uk/).  It is in beta test stage and looks
promising.  It'll be great for simple stuff.  Wouln't recommend anything
that uses just cartesian grids for complex jobs, but for the large
majority of jobs it will suit, especially if it's internal room flows,
etc.  Should be quite competitive on the price too.

 

Hope that helps.

Regards

Paul

 

Dr Paul Carey
Director

Zero Energy Design Ltd
10A Portland Place
2-22 Mottram Road
Stalybridge
SK15 3AD
UK

T:  +44 0161 3386200
F:  +44 0161 3031281
M:  +44 0789 4098012
E:  paul at zed-uk.com

http://www.zed-uk.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

________________________________

From: bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org
[mailto:bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of antixs
antixs

Sent: 10 September 2008 05:13 


To: bldg-sim at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: [Bldg-sim] CFD Software for Built Environment

 

Hi all,

 

Just wonder what CFD softwares are popularly used for analyzing built
environemnt in architect/MEP consulting firms? Also which one is
relatively eaiser to use?

 

Many thanks.

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