| Image:CD-adapco-logo.gif | |
| Company type | Privately Held |
|---|---|
| Industry | CAE software |
| Founded | Melville, NY (1987) |
| Headquarters |  Melville, NY USA |
| Products | Star-CCM+ Star-CD Star-Design |
| Owner | Steve MacDonald, President |
Number of employees | ~500 (2009) |
| Website | www.cd-adapco.com |
CD-adapco is a multinational computer software company that authors and distributes applications used for computer-aided engineering, best known for its computational fluid dynamics (CFD) products[1][2][3].
In their 2009 annual user conference, CD-adapco announced that the company had grown 22% in 2008, and they expected similar results in 2009[1]. Professional Engineering Magazine described this as "recession-proof performance" and went on to point out that this success is especially notworthy considering that many of the company's customers are in the automotive industry, a sector of the economy that was, at the time, suffering record low sales levels[1]. During the financial downturn of 2009, CD-adapco launched their "No Engineer Left Behind" program, which provided free Star-CCM+ licenses and training for displaced and unemployed engineers[4].
Products
editthumb|left|A screenshot of a fluid-flow analysis being conducted in Star-CCM+
Star-CD
editCD-adapco's legacy CFD package, Star-CD, was praised by Renault automotive design engineers as a "world class design package". Nearly 75% of the points won during the 2005 Formula 1 season were awarded to drivers of cars that were designed with Star-CD[3].
Star-CCM+
editIn 2004, CD-adapco opted to shift their attention from improving Star-CD to completely rewriting their computational fluid dynamics (CFD) algorithms and tools. The company gampled that in the end, starting from a "blank slate" with a group of experts would produce a better result than continuing to work improvements into their old products[5] In early 2004, the company introduced this new product, Star-CCM+, the "CCM" standing for "computational continuum mechanics"[6][7]. The application employs a client-server architecture, to allow users to solve problems from a lightweight computer, such as a laptop, while the computationally-expensive math is done on a remote machine. This substantially reduces the need for expensive desktop computers -- a requirement of some other similar packages[8]
Even in periods of major economic downturn, few customers cut back on annual licenses[1]. CD-adapco has speculated that their product's success has been partially due to the fact that their application was designed from the start to simultaneously solve fluid flow and heat transfer problems. Competing products are often a separate solvers coupled together, and conducting an analysis that involves both requires that both be kept in agreement; a time consuming complication that degrades accuracy[1].
Fuel Cells
editIn a partnership with the United States Department of Energy, CD-adapco developed an expert system to model and analyze solid oxide fuel cells[9]
Technology
edit[[:Image:Polyhedral_Mesh.jpg|thumb|right|A simple valve discretized into finite elements using CD-adapco's polyhedral mesher]]
Finite Element Meshing
editThe first "official release" of Star-CCM+ included the world's first commercially available polyhedral meshing algorithm.[10]. The use of a polyhedral mesh has proven to be more accurate for fluid-flow problems than a hexahedral or tetrahedral mesh of a similar size (number of cells).[11], but is considerably more difficult to create[11].
See Also
editExternal Links
editReferences
edit- ^ a b c d e Ben Sampson (April 29, 2009). "Growth Industry". Professional Engineering Magazine.
- ^ "Garuda, the car that runs 180km per litre!".
- ^ a b Total F1. "CD-Adapco helps Renault to success".
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ DE Editors (March 6, 2009). "CD-adapco Launches No Engineer Left Behind Program for Displaced and Unemployed Engineers". Desktop Engineering.
{{cite news}}:|author=has generic name (help) - ^ "CD-adapco Group Releases Star-CCM+". May 6, 2004.
- ^ Gould, Lawrence S. (October 1, 2004). "The trends in CFD are continuous, dynamic, and real". Automotive Design & Production. Retrieved October 1, 2009.
{{cite news}}: Unknown parameter|name=ignored (help) - ^ CFD Review. "STAR-CCM+ V2.08: Cranking Up the Heat".
{{cite news}}: External link in|author= - ^ Larry Gould. "The Trends In CFD Are Continuous, Dynamic, And Real". Automotive Design and Production.
- ^ AutomotiveWorld. "Simulation software for fuel cell development".
{{cite news}}: Unknown parameter|dateaccesed=ignored (help); Unknown parameter|name=ignored (help) - ^ "CD-adapco Releases STAR-CCM+ Box Set". CFD Review. October 18, 2005.
{{cite news}}: External link in|publisher= - ^ a b Franco Brezz and Konstantin Lipnikov and Mikhail Shashkov, New Discretization Methodology for Diffusion Problems on Polyhedral Meshes (PDF)