Release Notes for FLUENT 6.3 Fluent Inc.

Introduction
The FLUENT 6.3 release contains new features and defect xes. New features are listed in Section 2 of this document. Section 3 provides a list of supported platforms and FLUENTs Platform Support Policy. Known limitations are listed in Section 4. Section 5 contains a list of limitations lifted in FLUENT 6.3. A list of known and xed defects in this release is accessible from our online User Services Center (www.fluentusers.com) in the Release Information section under FLUENT 6 Product Information.

New Features in FLUENT 6.3

New features in FLUENT 6.3 are listed below. Solver Note: The segregated solver from previous versions of FLUENT is now referred to as the pressure-based solver. The coupled solver is now referred to as the density-based solver. Pressure-based coupled solver: new pressure-velocity coupling scheme for the pressure-based solver (see Section 25.4.3 of the Users Guide) Least squares gradient reconstruction (see Section 25.3.3 of the Users Guide) Bounded second-order time-advancement scheme for compressible liquids (see Section 23.2.3 of the Users Guide) Alternative convergence criteria for pressure-based and density-based solver (see Section 25.18.1 of the Users Guide) AUSM scheme for the density-based solver (see Section 25.5.3 of the Users Guide) Ability to specify exact end time for density-based solver with explicit time stepping Improved ltering in AMG solver Models Turbulence modeling LES enhancements DES using two-equation RANS models (see Section 12.8.2 of the Users Guide) Vortex method now considers streamwise uctuations at velocity inlets (see Section 12.9.4 of the Users Guide) Dynamic memory allocation for turbulence synthesizer method Extension of existing time statistics for LES (see post-processing for more details) (see Section 12.23.2 of the Users Guide) Dynamic SGS models for energy and species (see Section 12.9.3 of the Users Guide) RSM improvements for low-Re simulations (see Section 12.7.4 of the Users Guide) Custom wall function for k- turbulence models (UDF only) (see Section 2.3.23 of the UDF Manual)

c Fluent Inc. November 17, 2006

 Heat transfer Surface-to-surface radiation enhancements Improved surface clustering algorithm Compatibility with axisymmetric geometries Option for multiple cell zone enclosures Speedup of view factor calculations (parallel only) New, ecient storage format for the viewfactor le (see Section 13.3.12 of the Users Guide) Ability to select and deselect ow boundaries for surface-to-surface radiation calculations (see Section 13.3.15 of the Users Guide) Shell conduction model compatible with multiphase ows Coupled DO radiation with energy equation (high optical thicknesses only) (see Section 13.3.6 of the Users Guide) Species transport, reactions, and combustion Eulerian Unsteady Laminar Flamelet Model for slow chemistry and liquid micro-mixing (see Section 15.5.1 of the Users Guide) Diesel Unsteady Laminar Flamelet Model (see Section 15.5.2 of the Users Guide) Laminar ame speeds for gasoline provided as functions of pressure and temperature Ability to model up to 300 species and 1500 reactions when importing chemistry and generating amelets with the non-premixed and partially pre-mixed combustion models (see Section 15.8.3 of the Users Guide) Ability to apply ignition delay to partially-premixed combustion (see Section 19.2.3 of the Users Guide) SOx formation model (see Section 20.2 of the Users Guide) Improved integration of NOx model with non-premixed combustion models (see Section 20.1.10 of the Users Guide) Urea injection model for selective non-catalytic reduction of NOx (see Section 20.1.8 of the Users Guide) Diesel fuel added to uid materials list User-dened operating pressure for partially-premixed combustion model Dynamically determined Sc and Pr numbers for non-premixed, LES calculations (see Section 15.2.1 of the Users Guide) Maximum number of elements allowed in cpropep increased to 15

c Fluent Inc. November 17, 2006

 Discrete phase modeling Species concentration for DPM mass exchange computed using local absolute pressure (all solvers) (see Section 22.9.2 of the Users Guide) Ability to inject particles from moving surfaces (see Section 22.12.4 of the Users Guide) Option to inject particles using the surface normal as the injection direction (see Section 22.12.4 of the Users Guide) Ability to generate particle tracking history le in distributed memory parallel Multicomponent vaporization of droplets and lms (see Section 22.4.5 of the Users Guide) Ability to specify the number of parcels for the TAB break-up model (see Section 22.11.6 of the Users Guide) VOF model CICSAM scheme (see Section 22.3.2 of the Users Guide) Ability to model dynamic wall contact angle (via UDF) (see Section 23.9.8 of the Users Guide) Compatibility of open channel ows with outow boundary condition (see Section 23.3.9 of the Users Guide) Ability to control time step size via UDF (see Section 2.2.2 of the UDF Manual) Eulerian multiphase model Compressible Eulerian multiphase (see Section 23.9.8 of the Users Guide) Second order three time level implicit scheme (see Section 23.2.3 of the Users Guide) Compatibility with compressible liquid modeling (see Section 23.9.8 of the Users Guide) Frictional viscosity model for granular ows (see Section 23.5.1 of the Users Guide) Dynamic mesh modeling Ability to model steady-state applications (see Section 11.3.5 of the Users Guide) Transient table input for crank angle (IC modeling) (see Section 7.1.9 of the Users Guide)

c Fluent Inc. November 17, 2006

 Mixing plane model Available with mixture multiphase model Available with Eulerian multiphase Boundary conditions Mass ow rate inlet for both compressible and incompressible multiphase ow (see Section 23.9.8 of the Users Guide) AUSM scheme for pressure outlets (see Section 7.8.3 of the Users Guide) Material properties Anisotropic diusivity for user-dened scalars (see Section 9.3.2 of the Users Guide) Ability to choose transport properties from the KINetics library when using the KINetics module (see Section 14.1.9 of the Users Guide) Multicomponent real gas model (no reactions) (see Section 8.16.2 of the Users Guide) Mesh Conversion to polyhedral meshes in FLUENT (see Section 6.7 of the Users Guide) Adaption with polyhedral cells (see Section 26.1.2 of the Users Guide) Agglomeration of polyhedral cells in parallel(see Section 6.7 of the Users Guide) User-dened boundary deformation (see Section 11.3.2 of the Users Guide) Dynamic mesh 2.5D model compatible with user-dened grid motion (see Section 11.7.6 of the Users Guide) Shell conduction in parallel with polyhedral cells Surface-to-surface radiation model in parallel with polyhedral cells Moving meshes Support for many-to-many sliding interfaces (see Section 11.4.2 of the Users Guide) Ability to create and delete many-to-many interfaces via dynamic mesh events (see Section 11.7.4 of the Users Guide) Ability to dynamically switch from the MRF to the sliding-mesh model while retaining the MRF solution as an initial state (TUI only) (see Section 11.4.2 of the Users Guide)

c Fluent Inc. November 17, 2006

 Porous Media Ability to specify inertial and viscous resistances in moving porous zones (see Section 7.19.6 of the Users Guide) Alternative formulation for inertial resistance (see Section 7.19.6 of the Users Guide) Prole/UDF input for porous resistance direction vector (see Section 2.3.13 of the UDF Manual) Parallel processing Improvements to case and data le read times Improvement to data le write times AMG optimizations Memory usage optimization for the density-based solver Ability to assign specic parallel partitions to selected zones and/or registers (see Section 31.5.4 of the Users Guide) Ability to partition across non-conformal interfaces using METIS (see Section 31.5.5 of the Users Guide) MPICH2 installer (available for download for Windows platforms under Optional Packages, along with installation instructions.) Graphics, post-processing, and reporting Report minimum/maximum of eld variables on cell-zones (see Section 29.6.2 of the Users Guide) for volume integrals Ability to adjust interval for colormap labeling (see Section 28.2.5 of the Users Guide) Standard deviation report (see Section 29.5.1 of the Users Guide) Volume ow rate report (see Section 29.5.1 of the Users Guide) Log 10 option in custom eld functions (see Section 30.5.1 of the Users Guide) Volume integrals output printed to FLUENT console (see Section 29.6.2 of the Users Guide) Write to le for reports (see Section 29.6.2 of the Users Guide) Ability to monitor surfaces and volumes at every N iterations (see Section 25.18.4 of the Users Guide) Option to restrict histogram to one or more cell/face zones (see Section 28.8.7 of the Users Guide)

c Fluent Inc. November 17, 2006

 Expanded time statistics options for LES (see Section 12.23.2 of the Users Guide): Reynolds stresses (uv, uw, vw) Heat uxes (uT, vT, wT) Wall statistics Species statistics Report the center of pressure on walls (see Section 29.3.2 of the Users Guide) Report actual reference pressure location (TUI only) (see Section 8.15.1 of the Users Guide) Post-process incoming incident radiation on a zone (see Section 13.3.17 of the Users Guide) Data import and export Ability to save transient les using ow time (see Section 4.3.4 of the Users Guide) Support for Tecplot export in parallel (see Section 4.12.17 of the Users Guide) Support for ANSYS export in .cdb format (see Section 4.12.4 of the Users Guide) Support for CGNS export in parallel (CGNS data import is supported in parallel for the Linux platform only) (see Section 4.12.7 of the Users Guide) Ability to import Hexcore mesh with polyhedral cells from TGrid 4.0 Support for particle and pathline export in EnSight format (see Section 25.20.2 of the Users Guide) Support for cell averaged velocity data export to EnSight (see Section 4.12.9 of the Users Guide) Ability to extract meshes from CFX solver les (3d only) (see Section 4.11.3 of the Users Guide) User-dened functions (UDFs) and scalars (UDSs) Ability to solve UDSs in solid zones (see Section 9.3.3 of the Users Guide) Ability to disable UDS diusion at inlets and outlets (see Section 9.3.3 of the Users Guide) Execute at exit UDF (see Section 2.2.4 of the UDF Manual) User-dened Cphi in PDF transport model (see Section 2.3.2 of the UDF Manual)

c Fluent Inc. November 17, 2006

 User Interface Ability to access best practice recommendations and guidelines based on the current case setup (Case Check) (see Section 25.21 of the Users Guide) Null driver support for graphics export in batch mode (see Section 28.1.6 of the Users Guide) Use UP and Down arrows to review/select previous commands in the TUI (see Section 3.1.2 of the Users Guide) Add or delete characters anywhere in the TUI command line (see Section 3.1 of the Users Guide) 1-D coupling Ability to post-process WAVE results without overwriting output les Add-on UDF-based modules SOFC Fuel Cell Module Report anode and cathode activation overpotential (see Section 3.5.1 of the Fuel Cells Module Manual) Ability to assign a value of transfer coecient in the BV formulation (see Section 4.8 of the Fuel Cells Module Manual) PEM Fuel Cell Module Time-dependent solution of water content equation (see Section 2.6.7 of the Fuel Cells Module Manual) Material-based electrical conductivity (see Section 2.7 of the Fuel Cells Module Manual) Improved naming of user-scalar and user-dened memory variables (see Section 2.7 of the Fuel Cells Module Manual) User-friendly units (see Section 2.6.6 of the Fuel Cells Module Manual)

c Fluent Inc. November 17, 2006

Supported Platforms for FLUENT 6.3

Platform/OS levels that are supported in the current release can be found in the supported platforms list (http://www.fluentusers.com/platform/flusersindex.htm?path= /WWW/htdocs/fluent/software/platform/&prod=fluent 6.3.26) . Note: For all prior versions of FLUENT 6, the 32-bit version was launched by default on all UNIX platforms. With the release of FLUENT 6.3, the 64-bit version will be launched by default on all supported UNIX platforms, including: Solaris, AIX, HPUX (PA-RISC), and IRIX. In order to launch the 32-bit version of FLUENT 6.3 on these platforms, you will need to specify it explicitly by using the -32 command line option. If no command line option is specied, the 64-bit version of FLUENT 6.3 will be launched. Please note that the 64-bit version of FLUENT requires more memory than the 32-bit version of FLUENT. Customers using WAVE or the CHEMKIN KINetics package on HP-UX PA-RISC platforms (hpux11) will need to start FLUENT with the -32 option.

3.1

Fluent Inc. Platform Support Policy

Fluent Inc. is publishing this platform support policy in order to clearly communicate our plans for future platform support. Fluent Inc. is committed to providing high quality releases for the platforms we support. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary for us to discontinue support for older platforms as they are retired or replaced by newer platforms. In order to help our customers plan for their internal hardware needs, we are communicating the following policy that outlines the guidelines we will apply to dropping support for older platforms: Fluent Inc. will only support operating systems and hardware systems that are fully supported by the operating system or hardware system vendor. Fluent Inc. will support an operating system version for no more than 1 year after a newer version of the same operating system is released. (A patch to an operating system is not considered to be a new version. Fluent Inc. may, at any time, require that certain patches be installed in order for the software to operate correctly. Fluent Inc. cannot provide these patches to customers; operating system patches must be obtained through the vendor of the operating system.) Fluent Inc. will support an operating system or hardware system for no more than 6 months after full support for the operating system or hardware system is discontinued by the vendor.

c Fluent Inc. November 17, 2006

Known Limitations in FLUENT 6.3

The following is a list of known limitations in the FLUENT 6.3: File import/export The following are the latest supported versions of software from which FLUENT imports les, or to which FLUENT exports les: Format Abaqus Altair HYPERMESH ANSYS ASCII AVS CGNS Data Explorer EnSight 6 (TUI only) EnSight Case Gold FAST FIELDVIEW Gambit I-DEAS LSTC-DYNA NASTRAN PATRAN PTC MECHANICA TECPLOT Supported Version 6.5 5.1 10.0 5.0 2.3 4.2 7.6 7.6 1.3 10.0 2.2 11.0 970 23 9.0

Data export to ANSYS result le is not available on the lnamd64 and lnia64 platforms. (ANSYS data export to .cdb le is available on all platforms.) When exporting EnSight Case Gold les for transient simulations, the solver cannot be switched between serial and parallel, and the number of compute nodes cannot be changed for a given parallel run. Otherwise, the exported EnSight Case Gold les for each time step will not be compatible. EnSight export with topology changes is not supported. To properly view Fieldview Unstructured (.fvuns) results from a parallel FLUENT simulation Grid le must be exported from the parallel solver via TUI command eldview-unstruct-grid Grid and data les should all be exported from parallel FLUENT sessions with the same number of nodes.

10

c Fluent Inc. November 17, 2006

 Mesh Boundary zone extrusion is not possible from faces that have hanging nodes. The following features are incompatible with polyhedral cell types: Moving/deforming mesh Models FLUENT supports the Chemkin II format for Oppdif amelet import only. Non-encapsulated non-conformal and sliding interfaces are possible only with the new, improved interface algorithm. The surface-to-surface (S2S) radiation model does not work with sliding and moving/deforming meshes. The workpile algorithm is not compatible with the wall lm boundary condition. The shell conduction and dynamic mesh models are not compatible. The shell conduction model is not applicable on moving walls. The heat exchanger model is not compatible with grid adaption. Dynamic solution adaption is not compatible with load balancing. The FLUENT/REACTION DESIGN KINetics coupling is not available on the following platforms: hpux11 64, lnia64, lnamd64, aix51, irix65 mips4, ultra. Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) coupling with Abaqus is not supported on the Solaris platform. DO-Energy coupling is recommended for large optical thickness cases (> 10) only. The SOFC model is not available on machines running the IRIX OS. FMG initialization is not available with the shell conduction model. FMG initialization is not compatible with the unsteady solver. Parallel processing Improved error handling for parallel processing not available on hpux11 platform with vmpi. Metis partitioning is not available with the -pnet message passing interface (mpi). Signicant degradation of parallel performance has been observed using smpi compared to nmpi and net on the lnx86 and lnamd64 platforms. Zone replacement, activation and deactivation of cell zones is not available in parallel.

c Fluent Inc. November 17, 2006

11

 These features are currently unavailable in the parallel solver: Discrete transfer radiation model (DTRM) Continuous Fiber Model (CFM) add-on module Conformal grid adaption (hanging-node adaption is available in the parallel solver) Ray tracing algorithm in the solar loading model Data export to non-native formats other than EnSight, FIELDVIEW, Tecplot, and the generic heat ux data le Platform support and drivers Clusters using the Inniband interconnect require SuSE 9.1 or Red Hat Enterprise 3.0 as a minimum operating system. Update 3 is required for the Red Hat Enterprise 3.0 operating system running on the Itanium platform. The pathname length to the cpropep.so library (including the lib name) is limited to 80 characters. (Linux Opteron cluster using Inniband interconnect only). Patch PHSS 33033 is required for the HP-UX 11.11 operating system on the HP PA-RISC platform to use the real gas and ISAT-related combustion models. A specic Fujitsu port is no longer available. The arch should be manually set to Solaris. HOOPs does not support running a remote desktop on the Windows XP64 platform. Visit the User Services Center for the latest Windows graphics FAQ (www.fluentusers.com/support/installation/winfaq/video.htm). Solver Note: The segregated solver from previous versions of FLUENT is now referred to as the pressure-based solver. The coupled solver is now referred to as the density-based solver. The non-iterative time advancement (NITA) solver is applicable with only a limited set of models. See the FLUENT Users Guide for more details. NITA (using fractional time step method) is not compatible with porous media.

12

c Fluent Inc. November 17, 2006

 The following models are not available for the density-based solvers: Volume-of-uid (VOF) model Multiphase mixture model Eulerian multiphase model Non-premixed combustion model Premixed combustion model Partially premixed combustion model Composition PDF transport model Soot model Rosseland radiation model Melting/solidication model Shell conduction model Floating operating pressure Spark ignition and auto-ignition models Physical velocity formulation for porous media Selective multigrid (SAMG) Porous media The following models are not available for the pressure-based solver: Real gas model Non-reecting boundary conditions The pressure-based coupled solver is not available with the following features: Eulerian multiphase Porous jump boundary condition Fixed velocity Storing monitor data User-dened functions (UDFs) Some minor changes to your FLUENT 6 UDFs may be required. See the UDF Manual for details. The DEFINE RW FILE macro is not supported on the Windows platform. Interpreted UDFs cannot be used while running in parallel with an Inniband interconnect. The compiled UDF approach should be used in this case.

c Fluent Inc. November 17, 2006

13

 Third-party software GT-power v6.1 is the most recent GT-Power release tested and found compatible with FLUENT. GT-Power coupling is not supported on the HPUX Itanium and Windows XP64 platforms. WAVE v7.1 is the most recent WAVE release tested and found compatible with FLUENT. WAVE coupling is not supported on the HPUX11 64 and Windows XP64 platforms. When installing GT-Power, the GTIHOME path option used by the FLUENT run script cannot be more than 60 characters. The KINetics module is not supported on Linux Itanium platform. FLUENT-Platform LSF integration is not supported on the MS Windows platform. FLUENT-SGE integration is supported only on the AIX 5.1, IRIX, Sun/Solaris, and Linux platforms. Other To use the Remote Simulation Facility (RSF) link on UNIX machines, the FLUENT User Documentation must be installed. Otherwise, FLUENT will not be able to properly launch the browser to the RSF homepage. The PICT hardcopy format is no longer supported in FLUENT.

14

c Fluent Inc. November 17, 2006

Limitations that no longer apply in FLUENT 6.3

Geometry based adaption with background mesh is now available in parallel. Steady state dynamic meshing is now available with in-cylinder and 6-DOF functionality. The surface-to-surface (S2S) radiation model is now available for 2d axisymmetric geometries. The surface-to-surface (S2S) radiation model may now be used for multiple enclosures. The shell conduction model is now compatible with the multiphase mixture, VOF, and Eulerian models. The second-order implicit time-stepping formulation is now available with the multiphase mixture and Eulerian models. The general multiphase models (VOF, mixture, Eulerian) can now be used with the mixing plane model. Hexcore meshes may now be read directly into the parallel solver without partitioning in the serial solver rst (via the tpoly utility).

c Fluent Inc. November 17, 2006

15