CERN HPC cluster

HPC (High Performance Computing) computer clusters are essential for CFD calculations. The team uses the Windows cluster at CERN. It contains around 1024 cores and 12 TBytes of RAM which are shared with all users of CERN. All computing nodes are interconnected with low latency interconnect.

ANSYS products

ANSYS Fluent is one of the main CFD tool used by the team, completed by ANSYS Icepak libraries for special electronics thermal management applications. Case and data files can be read into ANSYS CFD-Post for further analysis with advanced post-processing tools and side-by-side comparison of different cases. The main tool for geometry creation and clean-up is Space Claim Direct Modeler, while for meshing a combination of ANSYS Meshing and Fluent Meshing (former T-Grid) is used.

Available version and platform at CERN: Release 17.1

OpenFOAM

The OpenFOAM® (Open Field Operation and Manipulation) CFD Toolbox is a free, open source CFD software package produced by OpenCFD Ltd and ESI Group and distributed by the OpenFOAM Foundation. The team also uses this code for certain projects, together with its meshing capabilities provided by the snappyHexMesh application.

Available version and platform at CERN: Version 2.3.x released in April 2014, on Linux server and machines