Component of SIMULIA’s Fluids Simulation portfolio, XFlow is a particle-based Lattice Boltzmann technology solver for high fidelity Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) applications.
For lubrication workflows like gearboxes and electric motor drives, XFlow delivers multiphase and moving parts modeling capabilities (https://www.3ds.com/products/simulia/xflow).
XFlow allows users to handle complex CFD workflows involving free-surface flows, complex multiphase flows, fluid-structure interactions, and high-frequency transient simulations with real moving geometries.
XFlow’s automatic lattice generation and adaptive refinement technologies reduce inputs, which helps users minimize time and effort in the meshing and pre-processing phase—meaning engineers can concentrate more of their effort on iterating and optimizing designs.
Users can benefit from extensive insights into system performance regardless of complexity, gear kinds, or lubrication method, this can help reduce the number of physical tests required by providing quantitative forecasts for results.
Key Capabilities of XFlow
- Single phase flow model
- Free-surface flow model
- Multiphase flow models: Particle-based tracking,
Phase Field and VoF - Acoustics analysis
- Thermal analysis
- Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT) boundary condition
- Radiation Montecarlo model
- Scalar transport
- Discrete Phase Model (DPM)
- Non-Newtonian flows
- Advance boundary conditions, including porous media
and fan model - Moving parts with enforced behavior
- Moving parts with rigid body dynamics up to 6 degrees
of freedom - Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) with Abaqus, Simpack
and FMU - Vibroacoustics analysis with Wave6
- Available on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform through
Power’By approach using the XFlow Specialist role
SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENT
Unified Pre-processor, Solver and Post-processor XFlow provides a unique and novel interface and working environment for the user. The pre-processor, solver and post-processor are fully integrated in the same environment. The User Interface layout is fully configurable with movable workspace windows and options to use pre-set display settings.
Pre-processing
Being particle-based, the algorithms behind XFlow lower the requirements imposed on the CAD models. For example, in the analysis of powertrain lubrication, the software is not concerned with moving or crossing surfaces as soon as these define a coherent fluid volume. XFlow reduces the number of parameters the user has to set to define the flow characteristics and generate the fluid domain. Thus, the
complexity of the geometry is not a limiting factor in XFlow.
Post-processing
The graphical post-processing capability of XFlow allows interactive visualization of the solution and allows numerical analysis even while the computation is still running. XFlow provides tools for additional processing through export to 3DEXPERIENCE platform or third-party applications such as ParaView and EnSight Gold.
TECHNOLOGY : Particle-Based Kinetic Solver
XFlow features a novel particle-based kinetic algorithm that has been specifically designed to perform very fast with accessible hardware. The discretization approach in XFlow avoids the classic domain meshing process and the surface complexity is not a limiting factor anymore. The user can easily control the level of detail of the underlying lattice with a small set of parameters, the lattice is tolerant to the quality of the input geometry, and adapts to the presence of moving parts.