{"id":105051,"date":"2009-12-12T14:39:19","date_gmt":"2009-12-12T19:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.mentor.com:\/\/c4b6214703300d99472cbbf14a5c3fd0"},"modified":"2009-12-12T14:39:19","modified_gmt":"2009-12-12T19:39:19","slug":"blog-posthands-free-cfd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/105051","title":{"rendered":"blog post:Hands Free CFD"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a person describes their ideal design software, or any software for that matter, Ease-of-Use is always on the list of desirable attributes. It makes sense that in order to be productive with the software in the shortest amount of time the software must be easy to use.\u00a0 All of the\u00a0 CAD and CFD tools I work with strive to achieve this goal (except for one which I won\u2019t name and it isn\u2019t one of our products) and hit the mark most of the time.\u00a0 For me, when considering CFD tools for the design engineer,\u00a0 the Ease-Of-Use concept extends from the start of the conceptual design through to the report that gets the final design approved.\u00a0 Factors that are important are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Speed of manual geometry creation<\/li>\n
  2. Ability to integrate existing MCAD and ECAD data<\/li>\n
  3. Ability to export MCAD and ECAD data<\/li>\n
  4. Speed and robustness of mesh and solver<\/li>\n
  5. Ability to review results to steer the design<\/li>\n
  6. Ability to share results to convince management<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    For PCB analysis we have taken Ease-Of-Use to a new level,\u00a0 a level where you don\u2019t even need to open the software.\u00a0 From a command line you can feed the solver an IDF file of the PCB (or even better, our FloEDA file) and link it to a thermal parts library to replace the critical components with a proper thermal representation.\u00a0 The mesh and solve are handled automatically and when the run is complete, say 15 minutes later, an html report is created.\u00a0 The report lists which components are running too hot and even provides pretty pictures of surface temperatures.\u00a0 For me, this is an evolutionary step with CFD.\u00a0\u00a0 While I can truly appreciate all of the meshing, conservation equations, and sophisticated numerical schemes to reach conservation, I don\u2019t always need to see it.<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

    PCB thermal analysis lends itself to this sort of Hands Free approach, at least in the preliminary stages, because of the analysis environment and the desired output.\u00a0 In the early stages of a PCB thermal design it is either going to be considered in natural convection or have some air forced over it.\u00a0 The desired output is the junction temperature,\u00a0 it\u2019s always about the junction temperature.<\/p>\n

    Their is another industry that could benefit from the same type of automation, at least in the early design phases, and that is Data Centers.\u00a0 At the early stages,\u00a0 it is a room laid out on a 2?x2? grid with Racks, CRACS, and floor tiles.\u00a0 Artistic representation below:<\/p>\n

    \"dc_art\"<\/p>\n

    It seems to me that there could be a standard similar to IDF, that lays out the room.\u00a0 In fact, maybe the same standard could be used.\u00a0 This could be linked to a library that replaces the place holders with a proper thermal and airflow definition.\u00a0 The output is well understood, at least in my mind.\u00a0 What are the Rack inlet temperatures?\u00a0 What are the floor tile flow rates?\u00a0 What is the cooling load on each CRAC.\u00a0 And give me a few contour plots to show the managers.<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    When a person describes their ideal design software, or any software for that matter, Ease-of-Use is always on the list of desirable attributes. It makes sense that in order to be productive with the software in the shortest amount of time the software must be easy to use.\u00a0 All of the\u00a0 CAD and CFD tools […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":757,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/757"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}