Coupling to external CFD solvers

You can perform complicated thermal-structural-flow analyses by coupling the Multiphysics coupled solution to one or more external CFD solvers. The external solver can be any third party CFD solver that has the appropriate CFD solver coupling API implemented. This implementation is very time-consuming and requires considerable resources.

At each coupling time, the solvers run in the following order:

1. Thermal solver

2. External CFD solvers in the order specified in the Solution dialog box

3. Simcenter Nastran solver

The CFD solution is always run as a steady state analysis.

The fluid domain, represented here in pink, is modeled in the CFD third-party software. You model only the solid bodies in Pre/Post. Data is exchanged between the Multiphysics solution and the external CFD solver through the following boundary conditions:

• Thermal Stream

• Thermal Convecting Zone

• External Solver Boundary Condition

Specifying the external solvers

For each external CFD solver, you need to create one External Solver modeling object to specify the following data:

• The location of the external solver executable

• The location of the input file for the external solver

• The dimensionality of the CFD model and the iteration limit for the steady state CFD run

• Model alignment settings

• Coupling convergence controls for the external solver

You specify the External Solver modeling objects in the Solution dialog box. The order of the modeling objects dictates the order in which the software runs the external CFD solvers.

Where do I find it?

Application	Pre/Post
Prerequisite	Multiphysics as the specified solver and Thermal-Structural (Multi-Step Nonlinear) as the specified solution
Command Finder	Solution
Simulation Navigator	Right-click the solution node→Edit
Location in dialog box	General page→External Solver Options group→Include External Solver

How do I

Define external CFD solvers

Define transfer of CFD data to the thermal solver

Define boundary conditions for external solvers

Learn more

Simcenter 3D Multiphysics workflow: coupled thermal-structural analysis with an external CFD solver

Exchanging data between solvers at coupling time

External Solver Boundary Condition

Thermal Convecting Zone

Thermal Stream

Quick links

Command reference

Pre/Post video examples

Bulk Entry Descriptions

Simcenter 3D tutorials

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Related Topics

SOL 401 nonlinear capabilities

Coupling to external CFD solvers, Simcenter 3D 2021.1 Series

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