Applied Math Modeling Releases CoolSim 4.2 

Applied Math Modeling Inc. announced today CoolSim 4.2 – the next revision of the company’s popular modeling software. As the industry’s only cloud-based implementation, CoolSim 4.2 continues to add important ease-of-use and modeling features.

“CoolSim 4.2 is laying the foundation for data center design optimization by allowing multiple design scenarios to be set up and submitted for analysis concurrently. This key feature allows CoolSim users to consider multiple designs from one base model,” said Paul Bemis, CEO of Applied Math Modeling. “Using CoolSim 4.2, users can now combine the power of parametric variation with the cost effectiveness of Cloud Computing to drive down simulation time and cost while increasing user productivity.”

CoolSim 4.2 allows users to quickly set up a model with varying cooling parameters over multiple scenarios, all from one model. Supply Air Temperature, Mass Flow Rate, and cooling unit On/Off state can all be altered from one simple table. This key feature allows CoolSim users to submit multiple design variations concurrently, greatly reducing the time taken to perform individual simulations as is done with other competing solutions.

“Unlike other data center design tools that require users to wait for the results of one simulation prior to submitting another, CoolSim allows multiple simulations to be submitted concurrently, thereby speeding up design optimization by orders of magnitude,” said Bemis. “With CoolSim 4.2, users are free to consider many more design alternatives prior to selecting the optimal design for a given data center environment.”

Key features of CoolSim 4.2 include:

• Cooling Parameter Variation: This feature allows users to turn set up multiple design studies from one model, with control over cooling air flowrate, supply air temperature as well as on/off state.
• Improvements in meshing robustness and solver convergence: CoolSim users will notice that these improvements, in addition to the new HPC cluster, will significantly reduce the time required to perform simulations.
  • User productivity improvements including a new “snap” feature allowing for the rapid alignment of geometry, making the creation of duct work and under-floor obstructions easy to create and model.
  • Improvements in the CoolSim automated post processing allowing for user directed control of output reports. Reports can be customized to provide users with variations of temperature and pressure contours, airflow streamlines, and animations.

CoolSim 4.2 is based upon an all new model building environment, which improves user productivity by allowing models to be built in multiple concurrent views. Thus the data center model can be constructed using both 2D and 3D views at the same time. The option to use multiple display monitors is also supported, offering additional on-screen real estate for building more accurate representations of the data center.

Once built, the model is automatically submitted to a hosted high-performance computing (HPC) cluster for processing using ANSYS/FLUENT (CFD) technology. After the simulation is complete, HTML output reports and 3D visual images are produced and sent to the user. This mechanism allows users to perform multiple “what-if” studies of their data centers to determine the optimal placement of existing equipment, evaluate new or alternative designs, or visualize the effect of adding new equipment to an existing room.

Applied Math Modeling continues to drive down total cost-of-ownership (TCO) for customers by delivering CoolSim using a hosted Software as a Service (SaaS) model that includes the software and the computational capacity to perform the complex CFD calculations.

“No longer do users have to pay the high annual license fees, or invest in expensive local computer servers to use a CFD based data center modeling tool,” Bemis said. “With CoolSim, users can leverage the same technology used in the aerospace and automotive markets at a fraction of the cost of ‘local processing only’ solutions.” By using the CoolSim 4 subscription model, occasional users can select a usage plan that meets their specific needs.