Creo Flow Analysis (Creo 9) Tips and Techniques

Chapter Summaries

• 0:00 – Welcome & Session Agenda Tom Quaglia (PTC) opens the tips and techniques session on Creo Flow Analysis Premium and introduces the presenters — Rich Moore and Alex Zhang from Simerics and Leno Tazzi from PTC — outlining the agenda covering fluid volumes, thermal, and the new eMotor/EMAG solutions.
• 2:44 – Creo Flow Analysis in Creo 9: Wizard Setup & Fluid Volume Basics Leno demonstrates the fully embedded, associative Creo Flow Analysis workflow inside Creo 9, launching the setup wizard on an electronics cooling box to configure turbulent flow, heat, streamlines, and the automatic fluid volume tool with leak-check and shortest-path diagnostics.
• 6:38 – Manual Fluid Volume Creation: Multi-Body Boolean Cut Workflow Using Creo 7+ multi-body techniques, Leno builds a fluid volume manually by extruding an enclosing block and applying a Component Boolean Cut against all assembly parts, then cleans up stray geometry with Flexible Modeling Remove for imperfect, leaky models.
• 9:30 – Simulation Setup: Solid Domains, Materials & Boundary Conditions The wizard is re-run against the manually built volume to assign air (ideal gas law), select solid domains for conjugate heat transfer, override material properties directly in Creo Flow Analysis, and define a pressure inlet at 1 atm using Creo 9's new units-aware framework.
• 12:44 – Heat Source, Meshing & Running the Steady-State Analysis Leno adds a volumetric outlet fan (0.001 m³/s), a 10 W chip heat source, configures a max-temperature plot on the chip, and takes advantage of Creo 9's improved tessellation controls before meshing and launching the steady-state solver with live on-screen results.
• 14:50 – Parametric What-If Optimization: Streamlines & Fan Speed Tuning With the chip peaking at 57 °C, Leno animates streamlines, flips the intake side using parametric features, re-runs the update to drop temperatures to ~53.5 °C, and shows live behavioral modeling what-if changes such as doubling fan speed to 0.02 m³/s mid-solve.
• 17:41 – Introducing Creo Flow Analysis EMAG: Maxwell Solver & FVM Approach Alex Zhang unveils the new full Maxwell equations solver built on the Simerics MP platform, highlighting its proprietary finite volume method (versus traditional FEM), unstructured body-fitted mesh, moving/sliding mesh coupling, and support for DC/AC electric fields, permanent magnets, and eddy currents.
• 22:00 – Bus Bar Joule Heating Demo: CFD-Only vs. Coupled E-Field Setup Alex walks through an automotive bus bar assembly in Creo Parametric, first showing the traditional CFD-only approach with hand-calculated heat inputs (50 W volume source, 150 W/m²·K convection at 300 K, 90 °C inlets) to capture temperature distribution across conductors and insulators.
• 27:08 – Electric Field Module: Current, Voltage & Joule Heating Results Switching to the standalone Simerics MP interface via the SPro file link, Alex adds the Electric Field module, assigns conductors (AC rods, copper) versus dielectrics (polymer insulation), sets 250 A current inlets and 0 V outlets, and produces a physically resolved Joule-heating temperature map.
• 31:51 – Magnetic Field Simulation: BH Models & Shielding Analysis Alex configures a magnetic field study using relative permeability, custom BH curves, or permanent magnet definitions on a cylindrical shield case, computing vector potentials, magnetic flux density (Tesla), and field strength (A/m) — directly applicable to industrial and medical shielding design.
• 35:30 – E-Motor Multiphysics: Oil/Air Multi-Phase + EMAG Coupling A full production e-motor simulation combines multi-phase oil/air cooling flow through stator and rotor, conjugate heat transfer, electric field Joule heating in the coil windings, and magnetic field effects — validated against thermocouple test data with near spot-on correlation.
• 39:00 – Creo 9 Project Management: Multi-Project Reps & Batch Runs Using a fire-hose smooth-bore nozzle, Alex demonstrates Creo 9's new multi-project workflow — associating projects with different simplified reps, duplicating projects to sweep inlet pressures (50/45/40 PSI), editing geometry (bore diameter), and executing overnight batch runs to build performance curves.
• 44:36 – Post-Processing Upgrades: Real-Time Probe & Dynamic Legends Alex highlights the new real-time probe for hovering over any surface to read exact scalar values, plus expanded legend controls that let users retint contours, tighten value ranges dynamically for regional clarity, and manage multiple entity-linked legends without setting monitoring points.
• 47:22 – Meshing Technology: Binary Tree Cut-Cell Mesher & Supersonic Validation Alex explains Simerics' proprietary binary tree Cartesian cut-cell mesher with refinement zones and body-fitted one-to-one geometry representation, then showcases pressure-based supersonic and transonic validation cases — a Mach 0.7 airfoil, oblique shock reflections, a Boeing fuselage, and a CD nozzle — beating NASA wind code benchmarks.
• 53:12 – Creo Flow Tiers (Basic/Plus/Premium) & Training Options Rich Moore closes with the three Creo Flow Analysis tiers — Basic (flow/heat/turbulence), Plus (radiation, moving/sliding mesh), and Premium (cavitation, multi-phase, multi-component dynamics, and now embedded EMAG) — plus an 8-hour instructor-led online course, Precision LMS self-paced training on Creo Parametric 5.0, and hands-on workshops with temporary Creo Flow licenses.