This presentation was held at the 2020 NAFEMS UK Conference "Inspiring Innovation through Engineering Simulation". The conference covered topics ranging from traditional FEA and CFD, to new and emerging areas including artificial intelligence, machine learning and EDA.

Resource Abstract

'Robust Geometry Variation for the CFD-Driven Optimization of Complex Geometries'.

One of the main challenges in CFD-driven shape optimisation is the flexible and robust parametric variation of complex – often free-formed geometries, keeping the number of degrees-of-freedom within reasonable bounds and taking into account all necessary constraints.

This paper introduces a new state-of-the-art workflow based on combining a specialized software tool (CAESES) with any of the flow solvers found in use within industry today.

CAESES is a dedicated and highly specialized CAD environment that addresses the aforementioned parametric variation challenge and is being used in industries like energy, maritime, and automotive for applications such as turbomachinery, ship hulls, and engine components.

The paper will present a case study featuring a Hydraulic Spool Valve from 'Duplomatic Motion Solutions' based in Italy. The goal was to optimize the valve to achieve the highest mass flow rate possible through the modification of the various internal channels.

Ten geometrical parameters were set-up to be varied and nearly 250 CFD runs automatically involving Design of Experiments (DOE) to capture the most influential parameters followed by the optimization of the best designs identified.

The study will present how CAESES and Simerics-MP (CFD Solver) resulted in an improvement of 8.65% on the mass flow rate and was undertaken 10 times faster than using the more traditional iterative design and CFD simulation process.

The key was the combined workflow automation and optimisation capabilities, bringing the whole process into one design environment.

'Introduction to UpFront CFD'.

With the rapid development in computer technology over the last decades, both in terms of computing power and affordability, the use of simulation – specifically CFD – has increased significantly.

Not only is CFD being utilized to a much larger extent, reducing the need for physical testing, but also earlier in the product development process. As opposed to using CFD late in the design process, where it can merely serve for validating a completed design or give some guidance for late changes, employing it early in the process turns it into a real design tool.

UpFront CFD is the obvious first step in achieving this but then how does an organization get to evaluate all the many design variants that are possible before making a decision to manufacture?

This paper presents a possible solution to this question.