Airflow Sciences Corporation (ASC) is an engineering consulting company based in Livonia, Michigan, USA that specializes in the design and optimization of equipment and processes involving flow, heat transfer, combustion, and mass transfer. Engineering techniques include Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling, experimental laboratory testing, and field measurements at client sites. ASC works for a wide range of industries world-wide, including power generation, manufacturing, aerospace, HVAC, food processing, biomedical, pollution control, oil and gas, rail, legal, and automotive.
In addition to engineering consulting, ASC has a test equipment division that manufactures flow measurement equipment such as data loggers, pressure/flow/temperature instrumentation, wind tunnels, and online flow systems.
ASC is the parent company of Azore Software, LLC, which develops and sells the commercial simulation software AzoreCFD. This advanced polyhedral-based CFD software use widely used for flow and heat transfer analysis and design.
History
The company was founded in 1975 by Robert Gielow and James Paul, two Professional Engineers with backgrounds in the aerospace industry. They quickly realized that the analysis techniques they applied to projects such as the Apollo program Moon rockets and commercial aircraft design could be used to advance a wide variety of other industries. Early years of the company were focused on aerodynamic optimization of vehicles such as cars, tractor trailers, and rail cars to minimize drag and fuel consumption. This work involved both wind tunnel testing and numerical simulation.
In the 1970s and 1980s, ASC developed a range of simulation software for potential flow and viscous flow analysis, writing its own CFD solver (VISCOUS). The capabilities of this cartesian-based CFD software eventually included advanced physics such as combustion, particulate transport and drying simulations, time-dependence, and convection/conduction/radiation heat transfer. In the 1990s and early 2000s, ASC personnel developed a new CFD software package, AzoreCFD, featuring a modern, polyhedral based solver in order to analyze highly complex geometries and physics. Azore development continues with new features and simulations capabilities incorporated to allow more unique flow problems to be analyzed.
In addition to simulation of flow and heat transfer, ASC has advanced its field testing capabilities on a regular basis over the years. Many of the tests ASC is requested to perform are new or unique, requiring development and fabrication of custom flow measurement equipment. Today's testing capabilities include velocity, temperature, pressure, particulate sampling, gas species and emissions, and more.
Scale physical model testing of industrial pollution control equipment
Problems solved by ASC
ASC works with its customer's to solve problems involving the flow of fluids (gases or liquids) in or around a wide variety of equipment or goods. Some problems include simply the flow itself. These include such things as reducing pressure drop, eliminating flow induced vibrations, or ensuring uniform flow through an equipment that processes elements of the flow. Since fluid flow carries energy, heat transfer problems such as improving thermal mixing or heating/cooling characteristics are often solved. Similarly, ASC undertakes many problems involving the pneumatic transport of particulate and droplets. The chemical reactions in a flowing gas or liquid are also the subject of ASC studies. Methods used to solve these problems include: Numerical simulation (including Computational fluid dynamics), Wind tunnel testing, Laboratory modeling (including Scale models), and Flow measurement/Field testing.
CFD simulation of external flows and plume dispersion for a medical complexWind tunnel testing of rail car aerodynamics
Customer base
ASC customers include manufacturing and processing firms from a wide variety of industries, including:
Electricity / power generation
Renewable energy
Food processing
Manufacturing
Metals processing / heat treating
Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) of buildings
Cement and mineral production and mining
Pulp and paper
Sporting equipment Aerodynamics
Steel producers
Automotive industry and auto racing companies
Class I railroads and railcar manufacturers
Biotechnology firms
ASC has performed over 4000 engineering studies worldwide since 1975.
Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and maintain mechanical systems. It is one of the oldest and broadest of the engineering branches.
A discrete element method (DEM), also called a distinct element method, is any of a family of numerical methods for computing the motion and effect of a large number of small particles. Though DEM is very closely related to molecular dynamics, the method is generally distinguished by its inclusion of rotational degrees-of-freedom as well as stateful contact and often complicated geometries. With advances in computing power and numerical algorithms for nearest neighbor sorting, it has become possible to numerically simulate millions of particles on a single processor. Today DEM is becoming widely accepted as an effective method of addressing engineering problems in granular and discontinuous materials, especially in granular flows, powder mechanics, and rock mechanics. DEM has been extended into the Extended Discrete Element Method taking heat transfer, chemical reaction and coupling to CFD and FEM into account.
A heat exchanger is a system used to transfer heat between a source and a working fluid. Heat exchangers are used in both cooling and heating processes. The fluids may be separated by a solid wall to prevent mixing or they may be in direct contact. They are widely used in space heating, refrigeration, air conditioning, power stations, chemical plants, petrochemical plants, petroleum refineries, natural-gas processing, and sewage treatment. The classic example of a heat exchanger is found in an internal combustion engine in which a circulating fluid known as engine coolant flows through radiator coils and air flows past the coils, which cools the coolant and heats the incoming air. Another example is the heat sink, which is a passive heat exchanger that transfers the heat generated by an electronic or a mechanical device to a fluid medium, often air or a liquid coolant.
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Computer-aided engineering can be defined as the general usage of technology to aid in tasks related to engineering analysis. Any use of technology to solve or assist engineering issues falls under this umbrella.
Heat recovery ventilation (HRV), also known as mechanical ventilation heat recovery (MVHR), is an energy recovery ventilation system that operates between two air sources at different temperatures. It's a method that is used to reduce the heating and cooling demands of buildings. By recovering the residual heat in the exhaust gas, the fresh air introduced into the air conditioning system is preheated before it enters the room, or the air cooler of the air conditioning unit performs heat and moisture treatment. A typical heat recovery system in buildings comprises a core unit, channels for fresh and exhaust air, and blower fans. Building exhaust air is used as either a heat source or heat sink, depending on the climate conditions, time of year, and requirements of the building. Heat recovery systems typically recover about 60–95% of the heat in the exhaust air and have significantly improved the energy efficiency of buildings.
Dassault Systèmes Simulia Corp. is a computer-aided engineering (CAE) vendor. Formerly known as Abaqus Inc. and previously Hibbitt, Karlsson & Sorensen, Inc., (HKS), the company was founded in 1978 by David Hibbitt, Bengt Karlsson and Paul Sorensen, and has its headquarters in Providence, Rhode Island.
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