Siemens just announced that it has acquired Nextflow Software, maker of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solvers. Siemens says that Nextflow’s Smooth-Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) solver doesn’t require the analyst to create a mesh, making it suitable for non-experts (and speeding up the overall analysis workflow). Nextflow’s solvers will be integrated into the Simcenter portfolio, so that customers can “leverage the complementary nature of meshless and mesh-based solvers to capitalize on each of their strengths, opening the door to new applications that were previously difficult to address.”

This matters because, as Vincent Perrier, CEO of Nextflow Software, said, “there is no single validation approach that fits all industrial applications. As engineering problems become more complex and design cycles are shortened, analysts must find the optimal trade-off between accuracy and computation time. Nextflow Software’s SPH solutions nicely complement the existing CFD offering in the Simcenter Portfolio to overcome challenges of complexity and long run-times.”

What’s interesting is that Nextflow is a relatively new company that has been working to commercialize meshless SPH. Clearly, not a revenue acquisition, but one for talent and technology.

Terms were not disclosed.

The title image is of a gearbox lubrication study, from Nextflow Software.