CFD meshless simulation, Siemens acquires Nextflow SoftwareERT

Siemens has acquired Nextflow Software, an independent provider of advanced particle-based computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solutions. Nextflow Software will become part of Siemens Digital Industries Software, where its offering will expand the Simcenter software portfolio, part of the Siemens’ Xcelerator portfolio of software and services.

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Nantes, France, Nextflow Software is a startup company focused on the development of innovative SPH meshless CFD methods. They have played a critical role in moving SPH from academic labs into the hands of analysts across industries, helping simulate complex transient problems faster and earlier in the product development cycle.

Rapid meshless CFD capabilities within the Siemens’ offering will then accelerate the analysis of complex transient applications in the automotive, aerospace, and marine industries such as gear box lubrication, tank sloshing or electric motor spray cooling.

“Our customers need to leverage sophisticated simulations earlier and more often in their design process, and this is creating a strong demand for rapid and automated CFD of dynamic gas-liquid flows – said Jean-Claude Ercolanelli, senior vice president, simulation and test solutions in Siemens Digital Industries Software -. Meshless technology has emerged as a leading solution to greatly reduce the setup and solving times for this class of problems, accelerating time to results and prove the behavior of products at a reduced time and cost”.

Siemens Digital Industries Software is already positioned strongly in the CFD market, providing both CAD-centric and high-fidelity solutions across mechanical and electrical design scenarios. The addition of Nextflow Software’s Smooth-Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) technology into the Simcenter portfolio can enable analysts to leverage the complementary nature of meshless and mesh-based solvers to capitalize on each of their strengths, opening the door to new applications that were previously difficult to address.

“We are very excited to join Siemens and expand the scope of CFD simulation for our customers – said Vincent Perrier, CEO of Nextflow Software -. Today, there is no single validation approach that fits all industrial applications. As engineering problems become more complex and design cycles are shortened, analysts must find the optimal trade-off between accuracy and computation time. Nextflow Software’s SPH solutions nicely complement the existing CFD offering in the Simcenter Portfolio to overcome challenges of complexity and long run-times“.