Cooling Design Tool Creates Virtually Prototypes Of Hot Systems

With Icepak 2.2, engineers can build a computer model of a product or system and create a virtual prototype of it from a thermal standpoint. The software enables designers to rapidly set up, solve and analyze solutions for cooling electronics in demanding computing and data-processing systems.The current version offers tetrahedral meshing capabilities and a greatly expanded tool kit filled with new object models. Driving the software is a new solver engine that uses the finite volume method solver from the firm's general-purpose FLUENT/UNS CFD tool. Productivity enhancements have been made as well: for example, data can be output to all major graphics formats. The software is available for all major Unix and NT platforms.