The only fully CAD-embedded CFD tool for designers and mechanical engineers
Simcenter FLOEFD is an award-winning, CAD-embedded CFD solution that lets engineers run fast, accurate fluid-flow and heat-transfer analysis directly inside NX, Solid Edge, CATIA V5 and Creo. Built to frontload CFD, it moves simulation early into the design cycle — so teams can evaluate performance, explore alternatives and remove engineering risk before costly prototypes. Its automation technologies deliver up to 75% faster simulation turnaround.
Why choose FLOEFD
- Ease of use — a designer-centric, wizard-based setup; no CFD expertise required.
- Speed — SmartCells, automated meshing and adaptive refinement cut simulation time by up to 75%.
- Accuracy — validated against more than 110 industrial CFD benchmarks.
- CAD-embedded workflow — fully integrated inside NX and Solid Edge, with no data translation or lost geometry accuracy.
- Democratised CFD — lets design engineers run CFD themselves, freeing expert analysts for high-end work.
Frontloading CFD: the advantage
Pushing simulation earlier into concept and design reduces late-stage redesign, catches thermal and flow issues sooner, evaluates more variants and cuts physical prototypes. Siemens benchmark data shows frontloading with FLOEFD can deliver 2x–40x productivity gains over traditional CFD.
Key technologies
- Fully CAD-embedded environment — works inside NX, Solid Edge, CATIA and Creo, automatically detects the fluid domain and keeps design and simulation synchronised.
- SmartCells Cartesian meshing — automatically meshes complex fluid and solid regions using an immersed-boundary method, handling “dirty” CAD and eliminating manual meshing.
- Unique transitional turbulence model — a Laminar–Transitional–Turbulent k-ε model that predicts flow-regime transition automatically, with accurate, grid-independent near-wall modelling.
- Automated solution convergence — auto-refinement, robust solvers and first-run convergence reduce reruns.
- Built-in variant & what-if analysis — clone projects, auto-mesh and solve updated designs, and compare configurations for faster optimisation.
Industry applications
Used across automotive, aerospace, electronics, industrial machinery, HVAC and consumer products for heat transfer (electronics cooling, LED thermal, heat exchangers, mold cooling), pressure-drop analysis (valves, pumps, manifolds, ducting), flow-field prediction (aerodynamics, cavitation, internal flows) and mixing/contaminant tracking (HVAC airflow, spray nozzles).
Frequently asked questions
What CAD systems does FloEFD work with? FloEFD runs inside Siemens NX, Solid Edge, PTC Creo and Dassault CATIA V5 as a fully embedded add-in — no data export or geometry translation required.
Do I need CFD expertise to use FloEFD? No. FloEFD is designed for mechanical and design engineers, not CFD specialists. Its wizard-based setup, automatic meshing and built-in convergence handling let non-specialists run thermal and flow analysis confidently.
How accurate is FloEFD compared to dedicated CFD solvers? FloEFD has been validated against 110+ industrial CFD benchmarks. For electronics cooling, HVAC, heat exchangers and moderate-complexity external flows, accuracy is comparable to dedicated CFD tools. For highly turbulent, multiphase or reacting flows, STAR-CCM+ is the better choice.