Altair announces HyperWorks Virtual Wind Tunnel 12.1, a streamlined and high quality vertical application designed to improve wind tunnel simulation for the automotive industry. Leveraging several of Altair’s state-of-the-art technologies from advanced meshing to high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics simulation, and designed with an intuitive, highly automated and streamlined workflow and user interface, HyperWorks Virtual Wind Tunnel brings new levels of accuracy and speed in predicting a vehicle’s external aerodynamic performance.

External aerodynamic simulation plays an important role in modern automotive design. The vehicle’s fuel consumption, stability, engine cooling, interior cabin noise and windshield-wiper performance all are influenced by aerodynamic forces. Wind tunnel simulations employing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) allow engineers to study these aerodynamic loads and can reduce the number of physical wind tunnel test experiments required during a vehicle’s development process.

Central to the solution is AcuSolve, Altair’s industry-leading CFD solver that is highly differentiated by its speed, scalability, robustness and accuracy. AcuSolve’s advanced turbulence modeling technology enables HyperWorks Virtual Wind Tunnel to predict the flow field and flow separation using steady-state and transient simulation for faster and more accurate results. The best-in-class fluid-structure interaction solution from AcuSolve allows more realistic and comprehensive automotive virtual wind tunnel simulation by considering the flexibility of structures.

Another advantage of HyperWorks Virtual Wind Tunnel is its advanced meshing capabilities. Built on a powerful meshing technology, HyperWorks Virtual Wind Tunnel comes with a fast, fully-automated unstructured mesher with boundary layers. Volume meshing for an external automotive aerodynamics analysis—including the underbody, underhood compartment and boundary layers—can be completed in less than two hours. The CFD solver at the core of HyperWorks Virtual Wind Tunnel is highly tolerant of element qualities, with the ability to manage badly distorted elements unavoidable for complex geometries. The solver’s flexibility eliminates the time-intensive mesh optimization step often required with other solutions, dramatically reducing meshing time.

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