ANSYS Fluent and ANSYS CFX
The two solvers are both capable of modeling complex flow over a broad range of applications fast and accurate with superior parallel scalability. Today, the core fluids simulation solvers represent more than 1000 person-years of research and development. Both solvers are designed, validated and optimized to handle industrial applications ranging from air flow over an aircraft wing to combustion in a furnace, from bubble columns to oil platforms, from blood flow to semiconductor manufacturing, and from clean room design to wastewater treatment plants.
There are however some differences between the two solvers. The GUI of ANSYS CFX is more modern than the one of Fluent and defining user defined functions is easier in CFX. Fluent is capable of handling 2D flow as a dedicated solver option, while CFX is a fully coupled solver that needs to solve all three momentum equations and fully 2D-simulation is hence not possible in CFX. The Immersed solid approach available in CFX is not available in Fluent. In general, Fluent is a preferred solver when it comes to combustion and chemical reactions, while CFX is preferred for turbo machinery applications. The ANSYS CFD license gives access to both solvers.
ANSYS CFD-Flo
The ANSYS CFD-Flo license is the entry CFD license, based on the ANSYS CFX license. The ANSYS CFD-Flo license includes all of the general models and features of the ANSYS CFX license, whereas the most advanced models are not available. Multiple frames of reference (for rotating equipment), advanced turbulence models like SAS and DAS, radiation, particle tracking and combustion models are not included. Multiphase is only available for homogeneous free surface for the ANSYS CFD-Flo license.
Turbo tools
A range of highly advanced and specialized turbomachinery tools are available in the ANSYS software portfolio.
ANSYS BladeModeler
ANSYS BladeModeler software provides user friendly tools for designing and optimizing both axial and radial turbo machinery. BladeGen and BladeEditor are two of the components of ANSYS BladeModeler. BladeGen is specialized to give a rapid 3-D design for rotating machinery applications while BladeEditor is a built in feature in DesignModeler. BladeEditor provides a seamless path to both structural and fluid mechanics.
ANSYS TurboGrid
ANSYS TurboGrid uses design input from ANSYS BladeModeler and creates a high-quality and scalable hexahedral mesh. Integrated grid topologies are used to optimize the grid quality with as few inputs as possible. These topology lines are automatically adapted to changes in the design to ensure a consistent mesh when optimizing a turbomachinery component.
ANSYS Vista TF
ANSYS Vista TF is a two dimensional solver designed to give a quick response to design input for turbomachinery applications. The solver solves circumferentially averaged quasi-2D equations and uses empirically based models. ANSYS Vista TF enables the designers to quickly improve basic design parameters in an early stage of the design cycle.
There exists a tutorial on our web page on the entire Vista TF workflow; for further information about this specialized component click here
Other Vista Tools
Several Vista tools exist within the ANSYS software portfolio, all with the purpose of giving a preliminary design of turbomachinery equipment: These tools are the Vista AFD (Axial Fan Design), Vista CCD (Centrifugal Compressor Design), Vista CPD (Centrifugal Pump Design) and Vista RTD (Radial Turbine Design). The resulting blade profile could be passed on to the BladeModeler tools for full 3D mesh and CFD simulation, or to Vista TF for a quick response of design changes.
Icepack
Icepack uses the ANSYS Fluent solver in combination with flexible automatic meshing, and provides fast and accurate thermal results for cooling applications, typically IOC packages, printed circuit boards and complete electronic systems. The user could construct the geometry or import the model from other CAD packages. Icepack creates a mesh and passes the mesh and model definition to the solver. Icepack solves the fluid flow and includes all modes of heat transfer – convection, conduction and radiation both steady-state and transient.
Source : http://www.edr.no/en/blog/blog/ansys_cfd_licenses
