This article compares Flotherm, Flotherm XT and FloEFD from four aspects: product type, meshing characteristics and impact, application interface and product positioning, for your reference.
product type:
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All three are dedicated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation tools; all three can support device and chip simulation model calibration with the T3Ster thermal resistance tester.
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FloTHERM uses a simulation engine dedicated to heat dissipation of electronic devices and PCB materials. It integrates electric-heat conversion formulas and supports parameters related to the heating of electronic components, such as power dissipation, the impact of heat on current and voltage, the impact of heat on resistance, etc. Therefore, it can support thermal simulation analysis at the electronic device level, board level, system level and environment level.
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FloTHERM XT uses a universal CFD simulation engine and also integrates electrothermal conversion formulas to support parameters related to the heating of electronic components, such as power dissipation, the impact of heat on current and voltage, the impact of heat on resistance, etc. Therefore, it can support thermal simulation analysis at the electronic device level, board level, system level and environmental level, but the simulation efficiency is much worse than FloTHERM's dedicated engine.
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FloEFD uses a general-purpose CFD simulation engine and does not integrate electric-thermal conversion formulas, so it does not support thermal simulation of electronic systems. It requires additional modules such as FloEDA to do some simple heat dissipation analysis of electronic systems.
Meshing characteristics and their effects:
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The grid of FloTHERM is a hexahedral grid. When making particularly complex product appearances, model pre-processing is time-consuming, but when dealing with thermal simulation of complex electronic systems, the efficiency and accuracy are very high, and the convergence is good; there are Among companies with cooling needs, 80% choose FloTHERM as their thermal analysis platform.
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The grid of FloTHERM XT can support complex curved surfaces. For the same set of design data, the simulation accuracy of FloTHERM and FloTHERM XT is basically the same, but the simulation efficiency of XT is far lower than that of FloTHERM.
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FloEFD's mesh can support complex curved surfaces, but it does not support the simulation of electronic systems. Both FloTHERM and XT can import PCB data and quickly model the component packages on the PCB (directly convert the package into a model), which FloEFD cannot do. FloEFD can import PCB data through modules such as FloEDA and convert simple-shaped component packages inside into thermal models, but it cannot support all electrothermal conversion parameters.
Application interface:
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FloTHERM and XT use independent simulation interfaces to import electronic design data (PCB) and import structural data through the MCAD Bridge module for modeling and simulation work.
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FloEFD is an embedded menu that can be embedded in 3D design environments such as ProE (Creo), Solidwords, UG, etc. After modeling is completed in the above 3D design environment, you can directly open the FloEFD menu to start the simulation. It is very convenient and efficient, and no additional Data import and export work. This is something that XT does not possess.
Product positioning:
FloTHERM is suitable for heat dissipation simulation, heat dissipation characteristic research and heat dissipation solution optimization of electronic products. The simulation results can provide an important reference for design improvement. In the long run, it can also bring great value to enterprises in improving their capabilities in thermal design and reliability design.
FloTHERM XT can import FloTHERM project files, re-mesh components and structural parts with complex curved surfaces (such as vents, fixed screws for heat conduction, etc.), conduct further simulations, and output simulation results that are closer to reality. Siemens (formerly Mentor) is also constantly improving the XT simulation engine, but it is currently unable to replace FloTHERM.
FloEFD is mainly used for heat dissipation analysis of structural parts or mechanical fluid systems or to study the heat dissipation effect of materials. It is not suitable for electronic systems.