About Software-Tools

Starting CFD in 1989 with PHOENICS and old-fashioned μ-VAX, we decided to go from Bremen to Kiel and from one-block meshes to multiblock structured ones. So, from 1995, we used CFX. Industry then gave more and more complex geometries and we heard about unstructured tetrahedron meshes. To describe flows of wind turbine rotors , we had to integrate inertial forces of rotating reference systems: In 1997, we decided to use FLUENT. After learning about fluid mechanics and other engineering tools (such as integral momentum theories and vortex-actuator disk models), we were able to implement own routines into these commercial products. Since 2001, we have used the Navier-Stokes-Solver FLOWer, invented by the DLR, since 2009 tau and since 2012 the Open Source Code OpenFOAM.

To summarise, we have an internal LINUX cluster with a max of 100 nodes and access to HLRN:

• Meshing: ICEMCFD Tetra, Hexa, Vers. 14
• 2d aerodynamic profiles: Eppler-Code, XFOIL
• BEM: WT-Perf (NREL, USA)
• Aeroelastic: FLEX5, GAROS, FAST