"The combination of Pro/ENGINEER for solid modeling and EFD.Pro for airflow analysis allows us to test our louvers for form, fit and function effortlessly," said Henry Aaldering, technical director at JAZO. "We can show the finished design to our customer complete with how it will look and work in just one day – that’s a saving of three weeks and thousands of Euros/dollars for each model."

JAZO is widely known for its expertise in designing, manufacturing and marketing protective housings for electricity, gas, telecommunications and boilers. The louvers, which are manufactured from aluminum and steel, are thin yet quite resilient. These patented structures are flexible and can be customized to fit any height – JAZO has about 50 profiles to match all customer requirements.

While creating their new family of transformer rooms, the team found that minimizing pressure loss was a major design challenge. The rain-resistant structures rely on natural ventilation; therefore, pressure loss results in less airflow through the housing and hence higher temperatures. With an extensive range of new designs, creating physical prototypes for each design permutation was not financially feasible. By standardizing on Pro/ENGINEER and EFD.Pro, the JAZO engineering team was able to create and test multiple prototypes quickly.

In addition, the group fed the results from EFD.Pro into Pro/MECHANICA as input for structural analysis. “Using an integrated design, the FEA and CFD process has definitely helped us save time and money and given us a competitive edge,” said Aaldering. And it seems their customers agree, as JAZO is the leading company in Holland for safety ventilation louvers and facades for utility buildings which have to be ventilated.

EFD.Pro analysis results depict amount of pressure loss on a JAZO housing.