CFD is a vital technology for simulation, visualization, and prediction of fluid flow, heat and mass transfer, and chemical reactions. It is a critical part of the computer-aided process engineering (CAPE) lifecycle for manufacturing companies around the world. Throughout the process industries, Fluent's CFD simulations are delivering major business benefits by enabling engineers to design for better equipment performance, more effective scale-up, improved safety, and higher productivity.

The development of the integrated software tools were funded in part by the Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy to be used to simulate and visualize advanced plant concepts in support of the DOE's Vision 21 program. The National Energy Technology Laboratory sought a solution to integrate power-plant process simulation with detailed plant component software to meet DOE's goal of modeling the performance of these complex systems.

“We are very pleased to be partnering with AspenTech, who is the market leader for engineering software and solutions in the process industries,” notes Barbara Hutchings, Fluent’s Director of Strategic Partnerships. “Our customers require this kind of interoperability in order to see how individual process equipment items impact overall plant behavior, and the coupling of these best-in-class tools is part of our overall strategy to deliver this capability. With Aspen Plus and FLUENT our clients get the power of process simulation with the detailed analysis of CFD.”

“Accurate process simulations are critical for enabling our customers to develop superior plant designs and to optimize existing plants”, says Manolis Kotzabasakis, Sr. Vice President of Engineering at AspenTech. “We are excited to be providing the first comprehensive ability to use rigorous CFD models in process simulations, and to be collaborating with Fluent to make this a reality for Aspen Plus 12.1 users. The new interfacing capability provides significant benefits across the lifecycle of plants designed and operated in the process industries.”

ALSTOM Power is one of several companies that played an advisory and applications role in the development of the FLUENT-Aspen Plus toolkit. To demonstrate the utility of the toolkit, ALSTOM Power used it to model a conventional steam power plant and an advanced natural gas combined cycle power plant. "We are very enthusiastic with the results of the Fluent and Aspen Technology collaboration," said Dr. Woodrow Fiveland, Director of Combustion and Environmental Technology at ALSTOM Power. "We expect significant benefits from knowledge reuse as the new interface fosters communication between the CFD analysts and the process simulation experts in our company."