General Flow Systems

Technomediation Services®

MacroFlow for General Flow Systems

What is MacroFlow?

MacroFlow General Flow Systems is an integrated molding, processing, and data visualization software package for predicting flow (fluid) and temperature (heat transfer) distributions in Flow design.

Click to view full size

MacroFlow is very useful for the fluid dynamic and thermal behavior of individual components in the design of a variety of flow systems. Because flow systems can be considered as a network of components and flow paths such as screens, filters, fans, ducts, bends, MacroFlow based analysis of such flow systems is very simple and fast in terms of model definition, computation, and examination of results.

MacroFlow allows you to create and test flow and heat transfer solutions with drag-and-drop, easy-to-use Graphical User Interface (GUI) using familiar icons. With a comprehensive component library, powerful solver algorithm, and data visualization tools, you can obtain and examine results in a matter of minutes on a PC. MacroFlow runs on PC platforms, under Windows 95/98 and Windows NT.

Applications MacroFlow General Flow Systems

Customers of MacroFlow General Flow Systems

Users of MacroFlow General Flow Systems

Benefits of MacroFlow General Flow Systems

Many flow systems are too large or composed of too many components for detailed analyses to be practical. MacroFlow enables you to visually represent flow system concepts that will work and show why they work. Furthermore, you will achieve the following benefits during the project:

	Shorten the system design cycle - Create more innovative network and systems and evaluate competing concepts quickly and accurately. Design alternatives can be quickly evaluated.
	*Improve product quality and performance* - Identify problem areas for detailed analysis, generate new design ideas, investigate thoroughly the design space, and improve project team communications on design tradeoffs.
	*Minimize development cost* - Use computational prototyping during design iterations.
	*Conduct "What-if" studies* - Investigate system performance and life cycle issues such as fan failure, weather, altitude, and dirty environment performance.

Capabilities

MacroFlow enables accurate prediction of the system-level thermo-fluid behavior in a variety of engineering applications. The easy-to-use integrated Graphical User Interface (GUI) allows quick network construction, solution control, and post-processing. The component library in MacroFlow is both comprehensive and flexible to enable network analysis of a large variety of engineering systems. Further, a comprehensive database of fluids allows analysis of gas and liquid systems. The heat transfer capability is very complete so that the temperature distribution throughout the system can be predicted for a variety of thermal boundary conditions. Finally, the solution methodology is very efficient, robust, and accurate to ensure, reliable use of MacroFlow for system-level design.

Features and Capabilities of MacroFlow General Flow Systems include:

	Steady or unsteady
	Compressible and incompressible flow
	Heat transfer with the surroundings by convection and radiation
	Real gas properties
	Mass and energy sources
	Intuitive graphical user interface for easy construction of flow system representations.
	A built-in library of components
	Ability to modify, extend, and customize flow and thermal characteristics of any component.
	Powerful solution algorithm for fast and robust solution of complex models.
	Comprehensive post-processing through plots tables, animations.

An Integrated Design Environment

MacroFlow provides a unified visual environment for the construction, solution, and evaluation of complex flow systems. The powerful graphical user interface facilitates easy construction of networks, allows flexible control of the solution procedure, and provides graphical display of the results. It enables users to analyze complex flow systems quickly and efficiently.

To further facilitate network construction, libraries of commonly encountered components, fluids, and units are included in MacroFlow. The flow system is then constructed through mouse driven selection, placement, and connection of the components within the graphical work environment.

Solution control parameters, such as relaxation factors, convergence criteria, and matrix-inversion procedure can all be specified through dialogs or pull-down menus. This provides the user with the ability to easily optimize the solution approach for a specific problem.

MacroFlow provides flexible post processing through a variety of means, including x-y plots, bar charts, tables, directly on the network, and animation. As with all input fields, units for post processing can be selected from the provided library or user-defined. Once a custom unit has been defined, it is dynamically updated throughout the entire program and added to the unit library.

Component Library of Components for General Flow Systems

For general flow and temperature design, the MacroFlow General Flow Systems library provides an extensive list of pre-defined flow and thermal characteristics including:

Flow Path Elements:

	Pipes, ducts, and logical connections
	Elbows, tees, wyes, and crosses with arbitrary angles
	Fans, pumps, and blowers
	Nozzles, exhausts, and intakes with and without screens
	Screens, filters, and orifices
	Diffusers and expanders
	Plenums and tanks
	Valves, including pressure, timing, ball, swing, gate, and more..
	Generic resistance
	Customizable node

All specific information corresponding to a component is user specified through component dialogs, making network construction simple and easy. Additionally, each component can be customized through a variety of user-defined correlations.

Fluid Property Library

A library of over twenty common operating fluids and gases is provided with MacroFlow. This library is based on the data presented in "Thermodynamic Properties in SI", by W.C. Reynolds.

fprops01.gif (5355 bytes)

Any other desired operating fluid can be specified through a number of options.

	Density - Ideal Gas Law, Compressibility Factor, or a polynomial expression
	Viscosity - Power Law, Sutherland's Law, or a polynomial expression
	Specific Heat - polynomial expression
	Thermal Conductivity - polynomial expression
	Thermal Expansion Coefficient - polynomial expression

If the above options are inadequate, a piecewise-linear input mode is available, whereby values of any material property can be expressed in tabular form.

The Technique of Flow Network Modeling (FNM)

The conventional thermal design process for electronics systems involves hand calculations or spreadsheets and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis. However, spreadsheets are system-specific, inflexible, and require a lot of time to construct. Also CFD analysis is very time-intensive in terms of model construction, solution, and examination of results.

MacroFlow uses a technique called Flow Network Modeling (FNM). FNM uses component characteristics based on empirical correlations from handbooks, vendor performance data, or in-house measurements. Unlike spreadsheets, FNM places no restrictions on the interconnections of the flow paths. As a result, FNM and its implementation in MacroFlow provides a simple, fast, and accurate method for rapid examination of various system configurations, exploration of design improvements, and investigation of "what-if" scenarios. More...

Papers

For more information on MacroFlow General Flow Systems, contact post@technomediation.com or, please fill in the Innovative Research request form.