SC/Tetra CFD software is developed by Software Cradle Co. Ltd.  (Osaka, Japan) and distributed and supported in North America by Upwind Technology, Inc (Sterling Heights, MI) and Cool-Tec Co. (Rancho Palos Verde, CA).  SC/Tetra is a leading CFD software package in the Asia/Pacific and is also the primary CFD software used by engineers at the Toyota Technical Center USA.

Understand How SC/Tetra Addresses Three Common Frustrations with CFD SoftwareBefore You Decide Which Product to License

In the CFD world, a good model is everything.  A good model will produce accurate answers and do it quickly.  A bad model can keep you from getting a converged solution, or worst, converge to an incorrect solution.  Building a good model may require diagnosing and repairing the geometry if the geometry is complex or consists of multiple parts, building a high quality surface mesh from the geometry, having the flexibility to use hex, tetra, polyhedron, or any mixture of cell shapes in the volume grid (hybrid mesh), inserting prism layer cells to control the boundary layer, and being able to refine or coarsen the mesh anywhere you deem necessary (or letting the software determine this using adaptive meshing).

Most CFD software will either have only some of this functionality or only be able to perform these operations on very simple geometries.  If you work with complex geometries, you may have to purchase additional 3rd party grid generation software.  In contrast, SC/Tetra has integrated geometry and grid generation capabilities that rival the best 3rd party software packages.  And SC/Tetra is fully capable of modeling the most complex geometries.  Could you build a complete automobile underhood CFD model using the pre-processor in your CFD software that will stand up to the scrutiny of the auto manufacturer’s engineers?  SC/Tetra has this level of capability and its there if you need it.

Frustration #2: I can’t properly simulate the physical phenomenon
To keep your costs down, you may be tempted to choose a specialized CFD code that is primarily capable of solving your immediate fluid/thermal problem.   But assuming you’re successful, one thing you can count on is more people asking you to apply CFD to solve other design problems.   Choosing general purpose CFD software will provide you with the greatest flexibility to simulate a wide variety of fluid/thermal applications.   At a minimum, you should be able to solve for the fluid flow field and temperatures (with heat transfer and radiation).   Does the software do multi-phase flows (multi-fluids, phases, and/or particles)?  How about chemical reactions and free surface flows?  Can you simulate transient conditions?  How about moving boundaries and compressible flows?  SC/Tetra is true general purpose CFD software with all these capabilities and more.

Frustration #3: CFD is expensive
You can expect the average cost for a single seat, general purpose CFD software license to be approximately $ 25,000 per year.  If the geometry you’re modeling is highly complex, requiring 3rd party software for diagnosing and cleaning the geometry, in addition to creating the volume mesh, this will cost an additional $ 10,000 per year.

$ 35,000 per year to get in the door is expensive!   In contrast, a single seat license for SC/Tetra CFD software starts at $ 15,000 per year. SC/Tetra is virtually all inclusive with its own high end pre-processor capable of modeling even the most complex geometries, a general purpose solver, and a state-of-the-art post-processor for analyzing results and making impressive presentations.  This makes SC/Tetra a value leader that enables you to do everything the more expensive CFD software can do (and more) for about half the price.