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Making flow visible
Glatt in Weimar uses EFD.Lab
Translated by BKL Übersetzungen Claudia Siegert GmbH
For more than 12 months now, the process engineering development department at Glatt Ingenieurtechnik in
Weimar has been working with the flow simulation software EFD.Lab. Michael Jacob, head of development,
praises above all the speed with which the necessary calculations can now be performed.
Dip.-Ing. Brigitte Michel
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Own workstation: Michael Jacob has flow simulation with EFD.Lab running on a separate PC
Picture: Glatt Ingenieurtechnik GmbH
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"It was exactly the right software to be offered at exactly the right time", says Dipl.-Ing. Michael Jacob,
head of technology development at Glatt Ingenieurtechnik in Weimar, talking about using the EFD.Lab in his
development department.
Customised and tailor-made
Glatt Ingenieurtechnik, Weimar is a development centre
performing development, planning and implementation tasks for the pharmaceuticals industry, among others.
The plant construction division deals with fluidised bed technology, primarily for the food and feed sector
and for the fine chemicals industry. Michael Jacob is responsible for process engineering development. He
uses many different calculation procedures in order to solve the various problems and tasks involved in
prototype development or parameter studies.
Up to 2002, flow simulation calculations were outsourced, but
Mr. Jacob was constantly on the look-out for a software to simplify the calculation process.
One day by
chance he came across a mailing campaign by NIKA which presented the new EFD.Lab. The possibilities available
with the new software aroused the development expert's interest. He put his name down for a training course
and was also sent a 4-week test version.
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Real machine
Picture: Glatt Ingenieurtechnik GmbH
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Screen shot Fluidised bed machine
Picture: Glatt Ingenieurtechnik GmbH
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Only brief familiarisation period necessary
"After only just a few
days, it transpired that this software is ideal for our purposes", Jacob summarises. "The results were
satisfactory, and the package meanwhile runs 24/7. We have set up a separate workstation, because several
licences would not have been working to capacity, and it was also a case of gaining more experience."
Michael Jacob was satisfied above all with the short familiarisation period. "This was incredibly fast for software
of this kind. All you need is to know the basics, that is completely sufficient. What we really liked was the
parameterisation functions which make it easy to change dimensions as well."
The key argument for purchasing EFD.Lab
was the excellent value for money, the user interface and also the speed.
Another advantage was that the software
runs on relatively normal PC systems, even though it needs plenty of power and lots of memory capacity. It runs on a
3 GHz Pentium-4 processor with 2 Gbyte RAM under the stable operating system Windows 2000. We have to use DVDs to
record the huge volumes of data, a CD-ROM no longer offers sufficient capacity."
Reacting flexibly to changes
They like using EFD.Lab at Glatt in Weimar because almost only adapted versions are developed. "We have never made
any two machines the same. We have to be able to react flexibly to customer requirements. The machines are relatively
large and have to be rated for pressure and temperature. This results in constantly new flow conditions."
The software
offers a clear concept. Interface import also works perfectly. "We integrate our tasks by a kind of hybrid modelling,
in other words, we calculate the additional data we need with our own software and then integrate them practically
as a volume source in the CFD. We already have first applications as well."
Following flow simulation and calculation,
the values can be used in design and in the strength calculations.
Several production steps omitted
For the Achema 2003,
Glatt launched a new product which had been completely modelled in the EFD.Lab in advance.
"This is why one of our aims
was to purchase this kind of software. First we had the prototype, then we built the models and looked to see whether
the already known results are actually produced", explains Jacob. "The prototype has a glass wall so you can see the
inner flow profile. This gave us a comparison. The geometry was then modified to eliminate any weak points. This was
another positive step. And so we went on to develop the next size, a machine which immediately had the flow profile
calculated in advance."
With EFD.Lab it is possible to omit two to three development stages: this cuts the development
time by half. "We're pretty fast", says Michael Jacob. "We have no production facilities of our own so all jobs have
to be outsourced. Every omitted stage saves time and money". At Glatt Ingenieurtechnik, they are particularly pleased
with the service and support from NIKA. The software house in Frankfurt not only offers the program, it also provides
its customers with optimum support for any questions and problems with using the flow simulation programs.
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» Special edition From Konstruktions Praxis 11/2003 (PDF, 2.010KB)
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