Gridgen Improves CAD Interoperability

By DE Editors

Pointwise Inc. (Fort Worth, TX) says it is solving the top problem facing engineering analysts today: mesh generation for computational fluid dynamics (CFD), so it should come as no surprise that its recent release of Version 15.11 of Gridgen further increases the reliability of its flagship CFD meshing software.

Gridgen is a complete meshing toolkit used to generate 3D grids for complex geometries in a production environment. Used worldwide by engineers and scientists in aerospace, automotive, and other industries for which CFD is an integral part of the design process, Gridgen is said to increase the value of CFD simulations by reducing the effort needed to generate high-quality meshes. Its techniques for acquiring and "repair-free" meshing of sloppy CAD models, automated high-quality grid generation, and portable ease-of-use supply the required reliability in computational simulations needed by engineers, according to Pointwise.

This latest release, Version 15.11, offers upgrades to the native CAD readers (NCRs) for importing geometry directly from CAD file formats. In particular, the NCRs for Gridgen V15.11 support Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 3, CATIA V5 R17, and UG NX 4 in addition to CATIA V4.2.4 and STEP. Also, the NCRs are now available for HP-UX.

"The native CAD readers have reduced some customers' geometry preprocessing time from days to hours by importing data from the CAD system's native format and without using a license of the CAD software," said John Steinbrenner, Pointwise's vice president for research and development, in a prepared press statement.

Gridgen's geometry-preprocessing solutions also include built-in support for standard geometry formats such as IGES and STL. Additionally, CADNexus (Medford, MA) recently made its CAPRI Gateway compatible with Gridgen for direct access to SolidWorks, Parasolid, OpenCASCADE, and other CAD systems.

"CAD interoperability continues to be a pacing item for our customers' applications of computational fluid dynamics in a design environment," said Steinbrenner.

Further improvements made in Gridgen V15.11 include mesh quality diagnostics, solid modeling, and anisotropic tetrahedral extrusion. Gridgen's license management has also been updated for compatibility with Pointwise software, which the company calls its next-generation meshing software.

Both Pointwise Inc.'s Gridgen and Pointwise software generate structured, unstructured, and hybrid meshes; interface with CFD solvers such as Fluent, STAR-CD, and ANSYS CFX as well as many neutral formats such as CGNS; run on Windows (Intel and AMD), Linux (Intel and AMD), Mac, and Unix; and have scripting languages that can automate CFD meshing.

More choices in CAD interoperability means more applications are possible, according to Pointwise. In addition to such applications as aerospace (airfoils, blast simulators, triangular and vectored nozzles, etc.) and automotive (exhaust gas, acoustics, wind tunnels, diesel engines, helical intakes, etc.), Gridgen is suitable for applications in such areas as chemical process, electromagnetics, marine and hydro, materials, power generation, and turbomachinery. Pointwise maintains a detailed list of additional application areas on its website.

Click here for more information about Gridgen’s compatibility and portability.

Click here for information about the evaluation version of Gridgen.

Click here to read examples of where Gridgen is being put to use.

Click here for more information about Pointwise and Gridgen.