Product information
Particle-based Fluid Dynamics
Altair nanoFluidX is a particle-based (SPH) fluid dynamics simulation tool to predict the flow in complex geometries with complex motion. It can be used to predict the oiling in powertrain systems with rotating shafts / gears and analyze forces and torques on individual components of the system. Utilizing the GPU technology empowers high-performance simulations of real geometries.
1. Benefits
Altair nanoFluidX is based on a weaklycompressible SPH formulation and contains a number of exclusive features which improve accuracy and make the code a unique particle-based solution on the market.
The software is created and optimized for use on clusters of Graphical Processing Units (GPUs), making it extremely fast. It can be used to predict, for example, the oiling in powertrain systems with rotating shafts/gears and analyze forces and torques on individual components of the system or predict the sloshing in tanks with transient motions.
For such typical gear-train applications, the code can run an order of magnitude faster than a Finite-Volume code while also including less geometry simplifications.
2. Applications
The particle-based nature of the nanoFring the simulation, such as sloshing, violent multiphase flows or rapid movement through complex geometry.
That makes it ideal for many applications in different industries, including:
2.1. General Free-surface Flows
Simulate sloshing of oil in the powertrain systems, free flowing fluids in an open environment, open or closed tanks under high accelerations and similar phenomena.
2.2. High-density Ratio Multiphase Flows
The Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method of nanoFluidX allows for easy treatment of high-density ratio multiphase flows (e.g. water-air) without additional computational effort. The fluid interfaces are a natural by-product of the SPH method and no additional interface reconstruction is required, thus saving computational time.
2.3. Rotating Gears, Crankshafts and Connecting Rods for Powertrain
Altair nanoFluidX has implemented options for prescribing different types of motion, therefore simulating rotating gears, crankshafts and connecting rods comes easy. Measure forces and torques experienced by the solid elements as they interact with the surrounding fluid.
2.4. Tank Sloshing
Particularly well suited for automotive, commercial vehicles and aerospace applications, tank sloshing simulation enables an accurate measurement of the forces experienced by the tank or vehicle during drastic acceleration, like braking or sudden lane change.
3. Capabilities
Altair nanoFluidX brings you faster pre-processing, advanced GPU technology for minimum simulation time, and easy post-processing.
3.1. GPU Computing
GPU computing provides a significant performance advantage and power savings with respect to their more cumbersome CPU counterparts. GPU revolution in scientific and engineering computing is rapidly progressing and nanoFluidX is one of the pioneering commercial software packages which utilizes this technology, bringing significant speed to the overall product development.
Standard Finite Volume CFD codes encounter enormous difficulties when tackling complex geometries, often failing to initialize. Even when they do, the preprocessing times would take weeks and the computational cost of such a simulation would be prohibitively large.
3.2. Simplified Pre-processing
Mesh in a classic sense is not needed. Import the geometry, select the element, and generate the particles. No more hours of pre-processing and devising a goodenough mesh.
3.3. Rigid Body Motion
Besides the rotation motion, the nanoFluidX code allows for element trajectories prescribed by an input file. Study the interacting of an arbitrary translationally moving solid and the surrounding fluid.
3.4. Hardware Requirements
The nanoFluidX team recommends NVIDIA Tesla V100, P100 and K80 accelerators, as they are well-established GPU cards or scientific computing in data centers and nanoFluidX has thoroughly been tested on them. The code also has dynamic loadbalancing ensuring optimal hardware utilization and can run on multi-node clusters as well.
“As a contributing resource for understanding lubrication flow inside a NuVinci product, nanoFluidX has been of value to our project. The software offering, HPC and nanoFluidX makes this simulation method approachable for the non-expert user like Fallbrook Technologies, and I would recommend it as a viable option for further simulation tasks.”
Brad Pohl, Chief Engineer, Advanced Engineering
Fallbrook Technologies Inc.
