That’s according to a new survey which examined thermal engineers in the electronics industry - including users of the five top thermal simulation suites.
The survey polled over 50 thermal engineers on their current thermal simulation tools, and also found that 36% “frequently” have their projects delayed due to slow solve speeds.
“Solving” is a crucial phase in thermal simulation, with engineers using solvers to calculate the complex equations needed to simulate heat transfer and air flow within their thermal designs.
According to Future Facilities this process is vital for accurate thermal simulations, but is often extremely computationally intensive. While many simulation providers are working to speed up their average solve times this research found that more than half (54%) of thermal engineers are not satisfied with the speed of their current simulation solvers.
Future Facilities also found that only a third (30%) of thermal engineers in the automotive sector were “very satisfied” with their current solving speed, while the satisfaction rate in other industries was even lower - just 25% of those working in IT, 17% of those working in Lighting and LEDs and just 15% of those in aerospace said they were “very satisfied” with their current solving speed.
Commenting Chris Aldham, Product Manager at Future Facilities said, “Far too much CFD software lets engineers down when it comes to solve speeds - but it’s a difficult issue to overcome. Typically, increasing the speed of your solver means reducing the accuracy and reliability of the end results. That’s simply not good enough. The best tools must carefully balance speed with accuracy, functionality and cost."
This report shows that companies really should be looking for faster and more efficient CFD solvers and, unsurprisingly, Future Facilities was quick to promote the fact that 88% of its 6SigmaET simulation users surveyed said they were satisfied with the platform’s solving speed.
