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FLOW-3D Software:
Overview

FLOW-3D GUI

FLOW-3D is a powerful modeling tool that gives engineers valuable insight into many physical flow processes.  With special capabilities for accurately predicting free-surface flows, FLOW-3D is the ideal software to use in your design phase as well as in improving production processes.

FLOW-3D is an all-inclusive package. No special additional modules for meshing or post-processing are needed. An integrated graphical user interface ties everything together, from problem setup to post-processing. For a list of key features in our latest release, Version 9.3, click here.

Full listing of new features in Version 9.3 pdf

FLOW-3D General Brochure pdf

Meshing & Geometry:

• Structured finite difference grid
• Multi-Block Gridding with embedded or linked blocks
• Fractional areas/volumes (FAVOR™) for efficient and accurate geometry definition
• Free gridding
• Solids Modeler
• Import most CAD files

Flow Type Options:

• Internal, external and free-surface flows
• Three, two or one dimensional problems
• Transient flows
• Cartesian or cylindrical coordinates
• Inviscid, viscous laminar and turbulent flows
• Multiple scalar species
• Non-inertial reference frames
• Two-phase flows
• Heat transfer with phase change
• Saturated and unsaturated porous media

Flow Definition Options:

• General initial conditions

• Boundary conditions

• Restart previous simulation

Numerical Modeling Options:

• Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) method for fluid interfaces--TruVOF
• Fractional areas/volumes (FAVOR™) for efficient geometry definition
• First, second or third order advection
• Sharp fluid interface tracking
• Implicit or explicit modeling options
• Point, line relaxation and GMRES pressure solvers
• User-defined variables, subroutines and output
• Utilities for runtime interaction during execution

Fluid Modeling Options:

• One incompressible fluid – confined or with free surfaces
• Two incompressible fluids – miscible or with sharp interfaces
• Compressible fluid – subsonic, transonic, supersonic
• Stratified fluid
• Acoustic phenomena
• Mass particles with variable density or diameter

Thermal Modeling Options:

• Natural convection
• Forced convection
• Fluid and solid conduction
• Fluid-solid heat transfer

• Heat transfer to voids from fluid/obstacles
• Distributed energy sources/sinks in fluids or solids
• Radiation by emissivity
• Viscous heating

Physical Modeling Options:

• Scour and erosion/deposition
• Cavitation
• Phase change (liquid-vapor, liquid-solid & liquid-gas)
• Surface tension
• Thermocapillary effects
• Wall adhesion
• Wall roughness
• Vapor & gas bubbles
• Solidification & melting (heat-of-transformation table)
• Mass/momentum/energy sources
• Distributed mass/energy sources
• Shear, density and temperature-dependent viscosity
• Thixotropic viscosity
• Elastic stress
• Electric field
• Dielectric phenomena
• Electro-osmosis
• Electrostatic particles
• Electro-mechanical effects
• Joule heating
• Air entrainment
• Molecular and turbulent diffusion

Special Physical Models:

• General moving objects with 6 degrees of freedom--user specified motion or fully-coupled with rigid body motion
• Rotating/spinning obstacles
• Porous baffles & obstacles with linear and quadratic flow losses
• Collision model

Metal Casting Models:

• Solidification/melting (heat-of-transformation table)
• Solidification shrinkage
• Binary segregation during solidification
• Solid-fraction dependent latent heat release
• Thermal die cycling
• Defect tracking
• Cavitation potential model
• Lost-Foam casting model
• Semi-solid material models
• Moisture in sand molds
• Shot sleeves
• Back pressure and vents
• Sand core blowing

Turbulence Models:

• Prandtl mixing length
• One-equation transport
• Two-equation k-ε transport
• RNG (renormalized group theory)
• Large eddy simulation

Porous Media Models:

• Variable porosity
• Directional porosity
• General flow losses (linear and quadratic)
• Capillary pressure
• Unsaturated flow
• Heat transfer in porous media

Two-phase and Two-component Models:

• Liquid/liquid and gas/liquid interfaces
• Two-fluid mixtures
• One compressible fluid with a dispersed incompressible component
• Two-component drift-flux
• Phase transformations for gas-liquid and liquid-solid
• Adiabatic bubbles
• Bubbles with phase change
• Continuum fluid with discrete particles
• Scalar transport

Discrete Particle Models:

• Massless marker particles
• Mass particles of variable size/mass
• Linear and quadratic fluid-dynamic drag
• Monte-Carlo diffusion
• Particle-Fluid momentum coupling
• Coefficient of restitution or sticky particles
• Point or volumetric particle sources
• Charged particles
• Probe particles

Shallow Flow Models:

• Shallow-water model
• General topography
• Wetting and drying
• Wind shear
• Ground roughness effects

Chemistry Models:

• Stiff equation solver for chemical rate equations
• Stationary or advected species

Automatic Features:

• Mesh and initial condition generators
• Time-step control for accuracy and stability
• Automatic limited compressibility
• Convergence and relaxation levels determined by FLOW-3D
• Mentor help to optimize efficiency

Options for Coupling with Other Programs:

• Geometry input from Stereolithography (STL) files--binary or ASCII
• Geometry input from ANSYS or I’DEAS tetrahedral data
• Geometry input from ANSYS or I’DEAS tetrahedral data
• Direct interfaces with Tecplot®, Ensight®, and FieldView® data 
• Output for PLOT3D-compatible visualization programs
• Neutral file output
• Extensive customization tools
• Topgraphic data

Data Processing Options:

• Automatic or custom graph requests
• Interactive OpenGL-based graphics
• Color or B/W vector, contour, 3D surface and particle plots
• Moving history and probe data
• Force and momentum computations
• Animation generation
• PostScript, JPEG and Bitmap output
• Streamlines
• STL geometry viewer

Multi-Processor Computing:

• Shared memory computers
• Distributed memory clusters

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