CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
22 March 2007
Product News
ANSYS and PCA Engineers Announce Software Integration
ANSYS, Inc. announced that it has partnered with PCA Engineers Limited to allow engineers to develop better turbomachines in shorter time. Working together, the companies have integrated PCA's VistaT (VISual Turbomachinery Analysis) software within ANSYS® solutions to improve turbomachinery design and simulation. The integration -- now available in ANSYS 11.0 -- makes it possible for turbomachinery designers to use PCA's proven engineering codes to develop preliminary blade designs, which then can be modified using ANSYS® BladeModelerT and analyzed for fluid dynamic, thermal and/or structural performance within ANSYS software.
PCA is an international engineering consultancy specializing in turbomachinery design. Its meanline design codes, Vista CCD for centrifugal compressor design and Vista CPD for centrifugal pump design, have been integrated within ANSYS BladeModeler. Given the machine duty -- such as speed, mass flow and pressure ratio -- and geometric constraints, these codes will configure the impeller blade shape and provide essential non-dimensional performance parameters on which to base design decisions.
"The recent addition of PCA's Vista CCD and Vista CPD compressor and pump design software into the ANSYS product line has considerably streamlined our turbomachinery design process," said ANSYS user Nicholas D'Orsi, partner and chief engineer of Turbo Solutions Engineering LLC. With a broad range of experience with computer-aided engineering (CAE) software, the company utilizes ANSYS solutions to help customers in industries as diverse as aerospace and HVAC to develop new machines. "By using Vista and ANSYS software, we can rapidly complete iterative sizing and performance estimation for centrifugal turbomachinery. A key feature of this new interface is the transfer of an initial impeller three-dimensional design into ANSYS BladeModeler. Once inside this software, the analysis features of ANSYS® CFX® allow for quick optimization of the design."
The Vista CCD and CPD design codes are fully integrated within ANSYS BladeModeler and are included when customers purchase or license ANSYS BladeModeler. ANSYS BladeModeler saves the Vista input parameters as part of the blade design so that new design iterations can be started from a previous design.
"The integration of PCA's software into ANSYS BladeModeler gives customers what they have asked for: built-in meanline design tools to help them rapidly develop new blade designs in the early stages of design," says Brad Hutchinson, vice president, global marketing, aerospace and turbomachinery at ANSYS, Inc. "This component of the blade development process was not previously available in the ANSYS turbomachinery solution. This new integration addresses compressor and pump designs, and we believe the partnership between ANSYS and PCA will benefit customers in the future as we apply such expertise to the full range of turbomachinery equipment."
As a consultancy, PCA Engineers serves many of the world's leading manufacturers of axial and radial turbomachinery. "PCA has enjoyed the extensive experience of ANSYS design and CFD tools over 10 years' use in the optimization of turbomachinery components in support of our consultancy business," said Chris Robinson, managing director of PCA Engineers. "We respect ANSYS enormously for their technical capability and attitude toward ongoing improvement in enhanced user interfaces -- which all continue to improve productivity. We are delighted to be able to contribute toward this success."
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