ANSYS Airpak 3.0 Released

ANSYS today announced the release of version 3.0 of its ANSYS® Airpak® airflow modeling software. ANSYS Airpak has set the standard in the industry for simulating room air distribution and thermal comfort since 2000. This version of ANSYS Airpak software introduces key enhancements that increase productivity, improve the meshing technology and enhance the realism of displayed results. ANSYS Airpak technologies are now part of the ANSYS, Inc. suite of products, from the company's acquisition of Fluent Inc. in 2006.

This latest version introduces a new and highly intuitive user environment, which features a model manager, advanced object wizards, alignment tools and four-window simultaneous views. The model manager facilitates the creation, edits, replication and other object functions; assemblies; libraries; and problem/project configurations and settings.

Centralized model management allows the user to quickly and easily access different aspects of the model, particularly useful when handling large and complex models. Several advanced object wizards make it easy to build a complex model from scratch in minutes. Four-window viewing simultaneously displays complex 3-D models from four viewpoints with on-screen iconic view controls to select viewpoints. The user can manipulate the geometry, as well as post-processing views, from different angles since each of the viewpoints are independently controllable. This powerful visualization tool allows the user to efficiently view the results of simulations of complex models to make appropriate design decisions.

"The newest version of ANSYS Airpak delivers technologies that improve the user’s workflow process by letting the user build more computationally efficient and accurate models faster than any other airflow modeling software package. It can greatly enhance computer-aided engineering for ventilation systems," said Ferit Boysan, vice president at ANSYS, Inc.

“The productivity gain provided by the improved user interface in ANSYS Airpak is noteworthy in itself, since it places control at your fingertips rather than buried within menus and sub-menus,” said Leon Adams, CFD analyst at SmithGroup in Washington, D.C., U.S.A., who uses ANSYS Airpak software to address complex geometries found in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry. “ANSYS Airpak version 3.0 also comes with the ability to create non-conformal meshes, which we (SmithGroup) use to our advantage in tackling the presence of linear slot diffusers within our projects.” The company uses ANSYS Airpak technologies at the initial conceptual phase to improve design decision capability as well as to communicate ideas and concepts to their clients.

At Flack + Kurtz, ranked as one of the world's top engineering firms by World Architecture, engineers use ANSYS Airpak technology to confirm and optimize designs such as atriums with radiant floors, offices with under-floor air supply systems, institutional buildings using natural ventilation, large casino areas with displacement ventilation, and data centers. "We are very impressed by the new ANSYS Airpak interface and the ease of use it brings with it. The tree view on the left of the window is very convenient as it helps us navigate and edit easily. The additional functions of aligning the faces of blocks and the additional macros are positive additions, and they help us a lot in the modeling process," said engineer Maria Xia.

ANSYS Airpak 3.0 software also offers a mixed meshing capability in which the user can utilize mixed tetrahedral and hexahedral meshes. The new automatic hex-dominant mesher can be used to mesh geometries quickly and efficiently. It is robust and highly automated, delivering mostly hexahedral elements; it also includes triangular, tetrahedral and pyramidal cells. It uses advanced meshing algorithms to allow the most appropriate cell type to be used to generate body-fitted meshes for the most general geometries.

ANSYS Airpak technology incorporates optimization capabilities that can be applied to the design of ventilation systems. Design optimization reduces the need for trial-and-error simulations in determining the optimum parameters of a ventilation system design. The ease-of-use of the embedded optimization module coupled with an efficient gradient-based optimization algorithm enable the design process to be completed in hours rather than days. Powerful post-processing capabilities, such as comprehensive user-defined post-processing functions and reporting on multiple data sets, help greatly speed up the design process.

The visualization of models and results has been enhanced by adding the ability to display textured surfaces, specify degrees of transparency for selected surfaces and apply various lighting to the model to provide more realistic scenes.

www.ansys.com