Create a virtual wind tunnel with (or without) Autodesk Inventor
By Design Engineering Staff
CAD/CAM/CAE Autodesk Labs CAD CFD computational fluid dynamics simulation wind tunnelAutodesk’s recently announced Project Falcon simulates wind tunnel airflow through Inventor add-in or stand-alone application.
Autodesk Labs has released Project Falcon, a free technology preview that allows users to run their models through a virtual wind tunnel simulation. Originally an add-on for Alias, the app has recently been updated to work as not only an add-in for Autodesk Inventor 2013 but also as a stand-alone application for Windows or OSX that doesn’t require an CAD software.
Whether run as an add-in or stand-alone, Falcon’s functionality includes 2D and 3D flow lines, shaded result planes, vector plots, and surface pressure shading. Quantified outputs include velocity, pressure, drag force, and drag coefficient.
While the add-in version lets Inventor users test their designs within the modeling Inventor environment, the stand-alone accepts most CAD file formats, as well as many other open 3D formats (.stl, .obj, .3DS, .lwo, .off, .ply, .tpf).
