Convergent Science is an engineering software company which has its headquarters in

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...

. The company develops and supports CONVERGE CFD software, a general purpose

computational fluid dynamics Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical analysis and data structures to analyze and solve problems that involve fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required to simulate th ...

(CFD) solver.

Company history

Convergent Science was founded in 1997 by a group of graduate students, including Eric Pomraning, Keith Richards, Peter Kelly Senecal, Daniel Lee, and David Schmidt, at the

University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

. Initially a computational fluid dynamics consulting company, Convergent Science became a computational fluid dynamics computer software company in 2008 with the release of its CONVERGE CFD software. Besides the headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, the company has additional offices in the United States, Europe, and India. Additionally, Convergent Science is partnered with the Japan-based company IDAJ to distribute and support CONVERGE in Japan, Korea, and China.

Software

CONVERGE CFD software is a multi-purpose

code for modeling three-dimensional, reacting or non-reacting, turbulent flows. The software package includes coupled flow and detailed

chemical kinetics Chemical kinetics, also known as reaction kinetics, is the branch of physical chemistry that is concerned with understanding the rates of chemical reactions. It is to be contrasted with chemical thermodynamics, which deals with the direction in wh ...

solvers, the graphical user interface CONVERGE Studio, and a license for a limited version of the post-processing and visualization software

Tecplot Tecplot is the name of a family of visualization & analysis software tools developed by American company Tecplot, Inc., which is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. The firm was formerly operated as Amtec Engineering. In 2016, the firm was acq ...

. CONVERGE features an automated meshing algorithm that generates an orthogonal mesh at runtime and employs

Adaptive Mesh Refinement In numerical analysis, adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) is a method of adapting the accuracy of a solution within certain sensitive or turbulent regions of simulation, dynamically and during the time the solution is being calculated. When solutions ...

(AMR) to refine the mesh during the simulation in areas with complex phenomena, like moving geometries or fluctuating temperatures or flow velocities. The company refers to this meshing process as “autonomous meshing”. The modeling capabilities of CONVERGE include steady-state and transient simulations for incompressible or compressible flows. The software contains a variety of physical models for phenomena including

turbulence In fluid dynamics, turbulence or turbulent flow is fluid motion characterized by chaotic changes in pressure and flow velocity. It is in contrast to a laminar flow, which occurs when a fluid flows in parallel layers, with no disruption between ...

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, conjugate heat transfer, multi-phase flow, fluid-structure interaction, and surface chemistry. CONVERGE has been applied for modeling internal combustion engines, fuel injectors, gas turbines, pumps, compressors, and engine aftertreatment systems. More than 700 peer-reviewed journal articles containing CONVERGE results have been published on these topics. Users of the software include automotive companies, the motor racing industry, universities, government, and corporate organizations. CONVERGE has been used in the development process for various high-profile projects, including Mazda's SKYACTIV-X, a highly efficient gasoline compression ignition engine, and Ford's EcoBlue diesel engine. Argonne National Laboratory, Caterpillar, and Cummins have employed CONVERGE in several projects aimed toward increasing the fuel efficiency of internal combustion engines. In addition,

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

and Roush Yates Engines work with CONVERGE to design high-performance racing engines.

References

{{Authority control Software companies based in Wisconsin