Flow simulation in a heat exchanger using CFdesign.

Autodesk raises a flow solution tent pole after a $39 million deal for Blue Ridge Numerics.

In February, Autodesk acquired Blue Ridge Numerics (BRN) for $39 million  in cash, and it made perfect sense. After Autodesk acquired Moldflow  (injection molding simulation), Algor (mechanical simulation), and PlassoTech (FEA analysis and simulation), BRN’s computational fluid dynamics (CFD)  software, CFdesign, was the one digital prototyping solution that they didn’t  have under the Autodesk tent pole.

According to Scott Reese, senior director of Autodesk’s digital simulation group, the industry’s emphasis on flow simulation and supportive industry analyst projections proved fluid flow and thermal simulation as the logical next step.

“Digital prototyping is our strategy for delivering solutions to manufacturing customers,” says Reese. “It’s not just about enabling [designers] to create the geometry and design, but allowing them to understand how it is going to perform as they are creating it.”

How will the product perform? What is the customer’s experience going to be? Is it going to break? Will it meet performance expectations? Simulation is a key that can answer many of these unknowns earlier in the design process.

“For products with air, fluid, or heat transfer elements to the design, [designers] are able to very quickly and accurately predict those factors in the context of the design, optimize them to drive profitability back into the product, and deliver better performance to the customer,” says Reese.

The Deal

BRN and Autodesk have had a long-standing relationship that dates back to 2002 when they became developer network partners. With the new deal, Reese stresses the importance of appropriately rolling out an integrated product.

“Our priority is not to rush it,” he says. “We want the CFD customers to transition into an integrated Autodesk solution as seamlessly as possible.”

Autodesk plans to keep the current Blue Ridge products in the market while the company works to rationalize the product line. Going forward, the difficulty may not only lie in integration, but also reseller education. While Reese contends that Autodesk has a robust rollout strategy, Stephen Endersby, product manager of simulation products at Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks, recalls the difficulty he encountered when educating resellers on SolidWorks’ in-house product, Flow Simulation.

"There has to be a real understanding, and that takes investment” says Endersby — SolidWorks has been selling an integrated flow solution since 2002, but battled initial low take-up.

“We invested in our technical team, our resellers invested in their technical teams, and now we’re reaping the benefits of those investments,” Endersby continues. “It’s not just a case of buying a company and selling [a product]; the whole go-to-market portion of that company can become quite complex.”

According to Reese, reseller education begins each year with the Autodesk One Team Conference (OTC) where the company rolls out the strategies and products for the year.

“It all starts [at OTC], and then we have different mechanisms throughout the year,” Reese says. “We’ve become really good at delivering training virtually, but making sure that our resellers are well-educated on our technologies is a big  priority and investment for us.”

When it comes to know-how, Ed Williams, CEO, Blue Ridge Numerics, sees an opportunity to utilize his team’s experience. “Autodesk is the driver, but they can leverage our expertise. We’ve been here for a long time,” says Williams.

Multi-CAD Mission

After working with other network partners, such as SolidWorks and Pro/Engineer, Williams chose to go forward with Autodesk because of his drive towards a multi-CAD approach.

“There is big opportunity in simulation,” says Williams. “We’re trying to get to [design engineers] before they get to the end of the process, build the product, and find that it doesn’t perform as expected. CFD allows you to find [flaws] earlier and find out what to do when the design doesn’t perform as expected.”

From the CAE/CAD/PLM world, computer-aided engineering (CAE) is growing the fastest, and CFD is the biggest slice of the CAE pie, adds Williams.

"Customers were asking about it and that is what drives our  business,” says Reese.

“I can’t emphasize how important multi-CAD is to our simulation strategy; it is paramount, and a guiding principle of our simulation technologies. Multi-CAD is at the core.” 

The simulation of ventilation ports and heat sinks, essential elements to an LED vehicle headlamp design, ensures that the LEDs are within operating temperature — and melting ice off of the lens.

“We’ve tried to empower [design engineers] with these tools. With the way things are going, they are being asked to do more; be more innovated; get the product to market faster — and make it smaller, more functional, and cheaper,” says Williams. “To expect them to do all of those things and not empower them with a better set of tools is a mission: impossible.”

End users are looking for a complete solution with mainstream capabilities.

The design engineer no longer views flow simulation as a specialist niche market.

"If design engineers are working in a niche market, they will live with poor integration,” adds Endersby. “With mainstream capability, companies want to perform all of their analysis inside a single environment. This [deal] tells me that Autodesk is following along the way that we blazed the trail.”

Until Autodesk can integrate BRN into a single user environment, Endersby doesn’t think that it will affect the CAD decision. “When you purchase a product and think to integrate flow into the solution, the user looks at how the two products can work together. After a few releases, when BRN is merged inside, [Autodesk] will have another item, but I don’t think the world has changed in terms of what the customer will see,” says Endersby.