Computer simulation has greatly shortened the path towards the development of ultra fine water mist fire suppression technology for NanoMist Systems, LLC. NanoMist is the trade name for the proprietary process technology of producing, scaling, transporting, and delivering the ultra-fine fine water mist system.

The fire suppression chemical Halon 1301 was banned after it was identified as an ozone-depleting substance and the search for newer and safer fire suppression agents was renewed. Amongst several other clean agents, the non-ozone depleting chemical HFC-227ea is the most popular agent in use today. It has some limitations, however, because of toxic by-products which may often reach harmful levels. It also has a global warming potential. From both an environmental and toxicity point of view, ultra fine water mist is an ideal compound. It may be potential permanent solution for fire suppression technology.

Available since early 2002, Gridgen’s Native CAD Readers provide the ability to read geometry from a CAD system’s native files. Native access avoids translation errors that can occur when using open standard file formats. Because native access is integrated into Gridgen, there’s no plug-in that an engineer has to execute from within the CAD system. In fact, use of the CAD system and its license are completely unnecessary – Gridgen reads the file directly. Native CAD Readers are available for CATIA® V4, Pro/ENGINEER®, STEP, and now Unigraphics®. Based on an early trial of this technology, engineers at Lockheed Martin in Dallas, Texas, plan to incorporate Gridgen's Pro/ENGINEER Native CAD Reader into their CFD meshing processes.

Flow Science, Inc. is a privately held software company specializing in high fidelity fluid dynamics modeling software for industrial and scientific applications worldwide. In addition to this new regional United States marketing effort, Flow Science has a worldwide network of Associates for FLOW-3D®, including Japan, Germany, Korea, Finland, Norway, Russia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Italy, Canada and Southeast Asia. Flow Science is located in Santa Fe, NM.

"We are extremely honored to have received this award." stated Blue Ridge Numerics president, Ed Williams. "Virginia is our home and we’re proud to tell everyone where our company is headquartered."

STAR-NX is a plug-in for the Group’s core computational fluid dynamics (CFD) product, STAR-CD, whereas Comet-NX is a complete product specifically designed to encourage and quickly assess upfront “what-if” design changes. In both cases, integration of CFD within the NX environment enables easier parametric design studies to be carried out with enhanced automation and bi-directional associativity between CAD and CFD models.

“Iceboard’s sole purpose is to help board designers to quickly verify their designs for thermal compliance. Board designers will appreciate the ease with which they can import their neutral ECAD files from software like Cadence Allegro or Mentor BoardStation and filter the data,” says Iceboard product manager Rajesh Nair. “And when they have their results, they can easily export HTML reports and Icepak-compatible files for further processing in a seamless, integrated fashion,” he concludes.