Comet-Design is a new CAD integrated CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) tool for design engineers. It has been developed in response to the increasing demand for associativity of analysis tools with downstream CAD/CAM processes. It is a stand-alone package with a solid modeler, automatic mesher, solver and visualizer all included.

A unique feature is that the computational meshes are formed from polyhedral cells, allowing the solver, Comet, to achieve faster and more accurate solutions than conventional CFD codes. It has the ability to handle applications involving complex incompressible/compressible, laminar/turbulent and industrial flows, as well as heat transfer. The advantage of the polyhedral approach is that it combines the benefits linked to both tetrahedral and hexahedral meshes, i.e. quick and robust automatic mesh generation and quick, robust and accurate CFD solutions.

Above all, Comet-Design benefits from being very simple to learn and use. For design engineers who are new to fluid flow and heat transfer analysis, the possibility now exists of adding CFD capability to their "tool box" in just a few hours. Above all, they get the range of accompanying services that only a CFD leader could supply such as specialized training, advanced modeling techniques, day to day assistance and consultancy.

"The ability to quickly iterate on different design configurations is critical for our design process", says Russ Stothers of Clean Current Power Systems. "The new Comet-Design tool allows us to build or import CAD geometry, pre-process the CFD model, and then run and visualize it all within a couple of hours. This is an extremely easy tool to learn and use. The ability to produce timely results has made it an invaluable addition to our design process."