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Please find below answers to some of the frequently asked questions related to licensing, technical or training. This page is the first port of call for any questions you may have and contains links to all the relevant pages in the website. If you don’t find what you are looking for do not hesitate to contact us.
We offer a free version of SimWorks that is intended for students and testing purposes and a commercial one devoted to professional use. In order to get access to the free version, we simply ask the suer to provide a valid email address and register. Our vision is to bring CFD to the widest possible audience and the free version of SimWorks is a great tool to get into CFD modelling. The GUI is designed to be as user friendly as possible and there is a wide collection of tutorials to introduce the user to its functionality.
We will not use your details for any purpose other than getting feedback on our software. You can unsubscribe at any time and you would still be able to use the free version.
Also no payment details and no commitment is required at any stage to register SimWorks or to get a free 14-day trial of the commercial version of SimWorks. You will be able to register your version of SimWorks for free during the first installation.
While the free version does not have any restrictions to the number of cells the user can define it has limited features and modelling options and can only run in serial. The free version also has a limited number of simulations available per year (see below for more details about what counts as a successful simulation). You can see the SimWorks versions comparison for reference.
The commercial version of SimWorks supports multiple-simulations, can be run in parallel and does not have any limit to the maximum number of simulations. It also features many more physics models and functionalities. We offer a wide range of licensing options (see below) as well as the opportunity of a 14-day free trial.
You can see the SimWorks versions comparison for reference, you can also request a quote to get info about the pricing.
You can get a free 14-day trial of SimWorks that does not have any limitations, and there is no need to provide any payment details. You can select the free trial license at first installation or update afterwards by clicking on the Licence entry in the main GUI and then Upgrade… and finally follow the on screen instructions.
The activation is automatic and it does not require any interaction with us, nor any payment or card details.
Once the trial period has expired, if you do not wish to extend it, the software will automatically revert back to the free licence, unless you contact us to get a licence extension.
The cost of a single licence of SimWorks is significantly lower than most of the commercial CFD packages available on the market today. We are able to to offer SimWorks at competitive prices because our software is developed on top of open-source packages, like OpenFOAM®*.
Also we offer substantial discounted packages for multiple licences purchases, which often include additional services. You can request a bespoke quote and a member of our team will discuss all the options with you. The quote is obviously be free and with no obligations.
We can define a bespoke version of the software from a GUI change to implementing additional functionalities in order to create a truly tailored product with only the features a company really needs. Replacing an off-the-shelf software with a bespoke version of SimWorks would lead to a reduced cost and a product better tailored to the user needs. A bespoke version of SimWorks would also lead to an increase in efficiency and substantial savings in training since the product would be adapted to the company’s requirements and users and engineers would not need to retrain on a completely new software package.
Just specify your requirements in the quote request form and a member of our team will be able to discuss your requirements with you.
We are very interested in liaising with university students, researchers and academic institutions and we are happy to offer heavily discounted academic licences of SimWorks. We also offer free individual licences to students.
The only limitation is that SimWorks must be used exclusively for research activities and not for commercial purposes. The licenses will be time limited (generally for the duration of a project) but can be further extended. This is because we are very interested in maintaining an open conversation with academic users.
Please activate your 14-day free trial of SimWorks completing the relevant activation page. Just contact us at the end of the trial period and we will be happy to extend it for you.
We would then kindly ask to cite SimWorks (and the link to the website: https://www.idealsimulations.com/simworks-free-cfd-software/) in any academic work carried out using it.
Yes, you can have a perpetual licence if required. Please contact us to let us know which version you are interested in and we can provide a tailored quote.
Bug fixes and versions update is included in all the licences (including the free one) and does not have any limitation in time.
You can see the SimWorks versions comparison to see the maximum number of simulations per year for every licence option, all the commercial licences benefit from an unlimited number of simulations. You can also book a meeting with a member of our team to get a bespoke quote.
The total number of simulations covers all the successful simulations carried out in 1 year, meaning that if there is a setting or meshing issue you can clean and rerun a simulation without affecting the total number of simulations used. On the other hand if you delete a simulation after it has run, the deleted one will be included in the total amount.
The SimWorks versions are defined as major releases which involve architectural changes and they follow a date convention so for instance the version 22.10 is a new version released in October 2022.
On top of this there are build numbers which are progressive numbers defining minor or intermediate updates, so for instance the version 22.10.18 is the 18th build of the major release 22.10.
You can check which version of SimWorks you have directly from the main GUI of SimWorks going to the main menu and selecting About us and then About Simworks a window will appear with the complete version code so you can check it against the latest version on the website or on the new version update mail.
SimWorks is designed around the concept of CFD design process, allowing multiple simulations to be defined, managed and run at the same time in the Simulation Manager environment. It supports the quick duplication of simulations, by re-using the existing simulation parameters applied to new geometries, and also allows to quickly define portions of the geometry as independent part groups to define different boundary conditions or different mesh groups to define different mesh settings.
Have a look at the list of SimWorks features which make it extremely fast for defining new CFD simulations and to carry out design iterations on an existing solution.
Moreover SimWorks is extremely cost effective making it a viable solution also for individual professionals and consultants as well as small and medium size enterprises.
Please find a list of all the SimWorks features, the software does not cover the full spectrum of OpenFOAM models and functionalities, but we aim to bring into SimWorks as many new features as possible. The commercial users will have direct access to any new feature and model introduced in SimWorks.
If you still cannot wait for us to implement new models, you can modify the OpenFOAM dictionaries yourself after they have been generated. SimWorks maintains full compatibility with OpenFOAM without touching neither the source code nor the dictionary structure. You can find a lot of material on how to setup an OpenFOAM simulations and define the required dictionaries on the OpenFOAM website.
On the other end, if you are a commercial user and would like to a have a bespoke feature added to SimWorks, do not hesitate to contact us. We would be happy to discuss with you about additional features or for tuning the software for your specific needs, as an additional service.
It is our vision to maintain full compatibility with OpenFOAM and not to prevet users from modifying the OpenFOAM dictionaries (for instance when a model is not implemented, see the previous point) or to use their version of OpenFOAM (as long as the dictionaries are compatible, otherwise it is the user’s responsibility to modify them). Please refer to the material on the OpenFOAM website.
We actually encourage the users to use the free and open source software Paraview as an advanced postprocessor and we have even defined a Paraview user guide to help users to do so. We think that FieldViewer (the postprocessor included in SimWorks) is great to compare the effects of a geometrical change but Paraview is a great tool for more advanced results analysis.
At the same time we understand that this “hands-on” approach is not suitable for commercial users, so please do not hesitate to contact us. We would be happy to discuss with you about additional features or for tuning the software for your specific needs, as an additional service.
The installation procedure is completely automatic, so you simply need to follow the installation guide on our website. Please note that the installation can take some time, as the installer needs to download and install the SimWorks libraries and a full Linux distribution. Please be patient and follow the instructions during the initial setup. If you do encounter any issues, please contact us and we will be happy to assist!
Like other small software vendors, we do suffer from false positives from some antivirus software. Our code is signed by a third party body (Global Sign) and it is absolutely secure. Please visit our SimWorks security section for more info.
You can either add SimWorks as an exception to your antivirus software or you can follow the manual installation guide, which show you how to reproduce each step of the installation procedure manually, i.e., download and unzip the required files from our website and activate the Window Subsystem for Linux (WSL) on your machine.
I cannot import my CAD, what do I need to do?
Sometimes the geometrical engine behind SimWorks is not able to recognise individual faces inside an imported igs or step file. Most of the time there is nothing wrong with the geometry and we advise to separate the different parts of the geometry in CAD into independent igs files and load these up as multiple files. To do so, when clicking on the import button, select them with Ctrl + click and then splitting the parts into independent part/mesh groups. Alternatively, you can import individual files one at a time and in this case independent part groups for each file will automatically be created. More info are in our CAD import guide.
IdealSimulations only offers support for bug fixes with highest priority given to the commercial SimWorks users. If you find a bug do not hesitate to report it. You can also contact us to agree the terms of the engineering support required to help you define your own simulations.
We strongly recommend completing the SimWorks course which takes just 3 working days to bring you from a new user level to a professional user level.
Whether you are a CFD professional or someone with little experience, we would encourage you to follow our tutorials. They are very practical and easy to follow, some of them are also available on our Youtube channel. The tutorials are arranged into categories according their difficulty, from Base to Intermediate to Advanced. Please complete all tutorials in one category before moving to the following one.This will show you progressively all the main functionalities of SimWorks.
Surely not! SimWorks offers a very user friendly way of defining a new CFD simulation. You just need a basic CFD knowledge and you don’t need to have used OpenFOAM previously.
SimWorks also keeps the OpenFOAM dictionaries open and accessible, this way users can progressively get more hands on with the code in case they want to make bespoke modifications to the simulations.
We can provide bespoke training courses for companies. Please contact us to get all the details of the different training packages available.
While at the moment IdealSImulations is a small startup and we are not recuiting you can still become a Partner and a SimWorks reseller.
By becoming an IdealSimulations Partner you will work closely with us and have visibility and access to all the work that goes on behind the scenes.
Our Partners and Software Distributors enjoy substantial profit shares on the final price agreed with the end customers and have premium access to all the advanced features of the software themselves. Just get in touch to have more info!
Please just commplete the SimWorks distributor form to request a quick meeting with a member of our staff to discuss all the details.
*None of the OpenFOAM® related products and services offered by IdealSimulations Ltd are approved or endorsed by OpenCFD Limited, producer and distributor of the OpenFOAM® software and owner of the OpenFOAM® and OpenCFD® trade marks
Try the free version of SimWorks or contact us to find out more