Mentor Graphics Launches FloEFD Product with Sliding Mesh, Water Film and Enhanced Radiation Capabilities

WILSONVILLE, Ore., December 1, 2014 —Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ: MENT) today announced the latest release of its award-winning FloEFD™ upfront and concurrent computational fluid dynamics (CFD) product. This new release provides advanced capabilities and functionality which enables designers and analysts to create more realistic operating environments and models for improved simulation accuracy. New features include a sliding mesh model for rotating equipment such as pumps, fans, and blowers; water film simulation to calculate surface condensation and icing film thickness; together with radiation and lighting enhancements. These new capabilities support automotive industry initiatives for developing state of the art lighting products as well as enabling manufacturers to design better pumps, fans and blowers.

“I am pleased to let you know that Tamturbo Oy Ltd. has been successfully using FloEFD for high speed compressor CFD simulations. Our test models show that the new sliding mesh rotor-stator interface model is very accurate and can be used for high speed compressor simulations” said Jaakko Sailakivi, chief technology officer. “In addition, I have also found technical support from Mentor Graphics to be very professional. The combination of powerful general purpose upfront CFD analysis capabilities and fast technical support has enabled us to use FloEFD as the primary CFD solution in our company.” Tamturbo Ltd. manufactures high speed compressors for use in food production as well as chemical and medical industries.

The FloEFD product is a leading general-purpose CFD software solution for the mechanical design market, and the new enhancements were developed to help engineers create more accurate simulation environments for their products. New key features include:

Sliding mesh modeling: allows users to create more realistic simulation of rotating equipment when fluid quantity is highly non-uniform around a rotating part (such as a pump or fan) and cannot otherwise be calculated with circumferential averaging.
Surface condensation and evaporation: the new water film model is valuable for situations where surface condensation, evaporation, icing and de-icing exploration is essential, such as condensation on the inner surfaces of an automobile headlight.
Enhanced radiation modeling: The new ray-based (band-less) spectral model for lighting and radiation allows users to dramatically decrease time required for defining wavelength-dependent properties while increasing simulation accuracy of spectral characteristics. Gaussian surface reflection for more precise simulation of reflected radiation is also included. Inclination of solar rays from the parallel can now be taken into account too thus allowing capture of solar radiation in greater detail.
Usability and visibility enhancements: The new release of the FloEFD product features an improved parametric study capability. It allows the user to group input variables to simplify scenario definition, filter parameters, highlight impact on results of a specific parameter, and conduct built-in comparisons thus increasing parametric study efficiency and dramatically decreasing the size of the stored data when hundreds of variants are calculated.
Improved visualization: The addition of GPU-based dynamic trajectories allows users to highlight flow details better and easily adjust the animation speed as well as appearance of trajectories in real time. A popular MPEG-4 codec has also been added for the creation of attractive animations without requiring enormous amounts of disk space.

“We recognize the challenges our customers face, particularly those in automotive systems design, and our latest version of FloEFD provides significant support for this market,” stated Roland Feldhinkel, general manager of Mentor Graphics Mechanical Analysis Division. “Mentor Graphics is an established leader in CFD technology and our latest enhancements to the FloEFD product are imperative to our customer’s success and profitability by enabling the development of new and innovative technologies.”

Product Availability

The new FloEFD product with sliding mesh, water film and increased lighting and radiation features is available for shipment today. For further information, and to attend a FloEFD webinar on these new capabilities, please go to the website: www.mentor.com/products/mechanical/products/floefd

About Mechanical Analysis from Mentor Graphics

The Mentor Graphics® thermal simulation and analysis products have led the market for 25 years, supporting the largest installed base by far of any thermal design tool supplier. In 1988 Dr. David Tatchell and Dr. Harvey Rosten founded Flomerics, Ltd. and launched what became the award-winning FloTHERM® product family. Mentor Graphics acquired Flomerics along with its MicReD® (Microelectronics Research & Development) development group in 2008. Today, Mentor Graphics continues this technology-leading tradition, providing a broad portfolio of best-in-class simulation, analysis, and test/measurement solutions. Visit www.mentor.com/mechanical.

About Mentor Graphics

Mentor Graphics Corporation is a world leader in electronic hardware and software design solutions, providing products, consulting services and award-winning support for the world’s most successful electronic, semiconductor and systems companies. Established in 1981, the company reported revenues over the past 12 months in excess of $1.15 billion. Corporate headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777. World Wide Web site: http://www.mentor.com/.