Tech Briefs

10 Million DOF CFD Solutions on a Laptop

In our News of July 15, 2006, we illustrated the performance of our algebraic multi-grid solver in CFD. However, since then, we have significantly improved the solver for large industrial CFD problems.


For example, the turbulence k-epsilon exhaust manifold model (shown in the above figure), in which the steady-state fluid flow is solved with about 1.5 million 3D elements, is now solved in only 53 minutes clock time, using only 2 GB memory, on a single processor PC.

The robustness of the solution procedure has also been improved so that the default solver parameters (i.e., relaxation factors and convergence tolerances) will work for most problems.

To further illustrate the efficiency of our solver, the graphs below show the solution times (clock times) and memory usage when solving the steady-state manifold and turnaround duct problems, previously described in our September 28, 2004, and July 15, 2006 News. For the graphs below, a single processor 3.2GHz PC costing under $2,000 was used. These solution times can be reduced by using a multi-processor machine.

Of course, the overall efficiency of our CFD solutions will also be of much benefit in the solution of complex FSI problems using ADINA.