Details:
Customer
Beyond motors d.o.o.
Technology Used
Ansys SpaceClaim, Ansys Fluent, Python, PyFluent, C++, UDFs
Objective:
Automate CFD simulation setup for external condenser placement, drastically reducing manual effort, minimizing errors, and enabling rapid evaluation of multiple design iterations.
Challenge:
Manually configuring external condenser simulations involved setting up multiple 2D fans, defining porous zones, and implementing source terms through UDFs. This process was highly time-consuming, prone to errors, and demanded advanced CFD knowledge. Any mistake could invalidate simulation results or require repeated setup, creating bottlenecks that slowed the design iteration process. Ensuring that the workflow could handle multiple condenser configurations reliably and scale to different data center layouts added further complexity.
Solution:
A Python-based workflow integrated with SpaceClaim was developed to automate PyFluent script generation, including on-the-fly C++ UDF creation and compilation. The system reduces manual input, prevents common setup mistakes, and decouples the workflow from the Fluent interface, allowing users to execute condenser placement analyses directly within SpaceClaim. The automation supports multiple design iterations efficiently, ensuring reliability and consistency across simulations. This setup supports multiple design iterations quickly, allowing airflow patterns and thermal effects of various condenser configurations to be assessed efficiently.
Conclusion:
The automated workflow reduces CFD setup from one week to hours, delivers consistent, reliable simulations, and allows users at different levels of CFD expertise to evaluate multiple condenser layouts rapidly. By streamlining the design process, it accelerates decision-making for data center thermal management and provides a scalable framework for future optimization projects.
