what.htm

Encyclopaedia Index PHOENICS Overview, TR100

1. What PHOENICS is

2008 update

See notes in red font at various points in TR100

PHOENICS is a general-purpose software package which predicts quantitatively:
- how fluids (air, water, steam, oil, blood, etc) flow in and around:
  - engines,
  - process equipment,
  - buildings,
  - human beings,
  - lakes, river and oceans,
  - and so on;
- what are the associated changes of temperature and of chemical and physical composition;
- what are the associated stresses in the immersed or surrounding solids.

PHOENICS is employed primarily by:-
- scientists for testing theories which may explain their experimental observations;
- process and mechanical engineers for the design of heat-exchangers, pumps, valves, machines, vehicles and other equipment which produces power or which processes materials;
- heating and ventilating specialists for the design of comfortable buildings;
- environmentalists for the prediction, and if possible control, of environmental impact and hazards; and
- teachers and students for the study of fluid dynamics, heat transfer, combustion, stress-analysis and related disciplines.
PHOENICS is a "CFD code", i.e. a member, indeed the founding member, of that family of software packages which embody the techniques of Computational Fluid Dynamics.
It is also an "SFT code", wherein the acronym stands for 'Solid-Fluid-Thermal' and draws attention to the stresses-in-solids capability of PHOENICS.
PHOENICS has been continuously marketed, used and developed since 1981, for which reason it possesses many features which have still not yet found their way into competitive codes, as explained here.
Its name is an acronym for
Parabolic Hyperbolic Or Elliptic Numerical Integration Code Series,
wherein "parabolic", "hyperbolic" and "elliptic" are the words which mathematicians use to distinguish the underlying equations.

2008 update

All the above remains true; yet now PHOENICS often acts as a behind-the-scenes 'computational engine' in what appears to its user as a software package designed for just one purpose, namely his or her own.

This is effected by the provision of customised 'Gateways', which assist those who have no CFD knowledge to carry out the flow simulations which interest them.