Welcome
User guide
The user guide gives information about principles and how to use Altair® Flux® 2024.1.
What's new?
See the release notes of the last and previous versions, with the necessary information on new features.
"How to" Documents
See a list of documents to understand how to use certain features.
- How to Use Solver Parallelization and Parametric Distribution with Flux?
- How to Launch Flux via Command Line?
- How to Configure the Memory in Flux?
- How to convert deprecated Bertotti into Modified Bertotti parameters
  The deprecated Bertotti model for the evaluation of iron losses is no longer available since Flux 2023. This How-to document presents the guidelines for converting a parameter set of that model into equivalent parameters of the improved, currently available Modified Bertotti model.
- How to Drive Flux with Compose?
- How to Experiment with NumPy in Flux?
- How to Get the Steps of a Scenario?
- How to import a HyperMesh mesh?
- How to import a SimLab mesh?
- How to Use External Jython Classes in Flux?
- How to use the Flux-AcuSolve coupling with the Import/Export context?
- How to use the Flux-OptiStruct coupling with the Import/Export context?
- How to mesh skin effect?
Altair Flux Videos
Several youtube videos about how to use Altair Flux and several tip and tricks
Flux Supervisor
The Flux supervisor allows to run projects, examples, pythons scripts; to configure user preferences; to access tools...
Flux
Flux is a finite element software for low-frequency electromagnetic and thermal simulations. Both, 2D and 3D solutions are available...
Flux Skew
Flux Skew is a module dedicated to the analysis of rotating electric machines with skewing, allowing a straightforward geometric and physical description in 2D and the consideration of continuous or step skewing effects.
Flux PEEC
Flux PEEC is a 3D modeling module dedicated to electrical interconnections of power electronics devices. It also provides RLC extraction and generation of SPICE-like equivalent circuits.
Material Identification
The Material Identification tool is based on the Altair Compose environment and allows determining from measurements the parameters and coefficients required to create a material in Flux.
Altair Material Datacenter (AMDC)
AMDC is a comprehensive material database maintained by Altair and partner suppliers of engineering materials. Ready-to-use, Flux-compatible models may be obtained directly from this database for a growing number of materials.
Material Manager
Flux has a material manager with its own material base.The user can create his own material base and import them into the Flux models to be studied.
Flux e-Machine Toolbox
FeMt is a application in Flux dedicated for Electric Machine which permits to compute and postprocess results like efficiency maps.
Flux Examples
See the lists of examples 2D, 3D, SKEW and PEEC with all available documents and all project and python files.
Flux in SimLab Examples
See the lists of 2D and 3D SimLab examples using the Flux and Mipse solvers, with all available documents, *.slb databases and all script files.
Mementos
See a list of Memento documents to understand certain Flux features.
Macros
Flux proposes several macros enabling doing actions that are not yet implemented in Flux.
PyFlux Documentation (Beta version)
This documentation deals with the Jython script used in Flux and allows to understand the various structures of entities and functions, and use it in user scripts for example.
Flux installation guide
This document provides instructions for Flux installation on supported platforms.
Flux Starting Guide
Several short videos to start with Flux.

Recommendations for Flux 2D

As seen previously, this document aims to determine the best combination between the number of cores used and the choice of the solver to save as much time and memory as possible during solving.

For Flux 2D, we use the two machines below by varying the mesh to increase the number of nodes in order to, recommend the right solver and the right number of cores according to the number of mesh nodes.

Figure 1. Both machines used by Flux 2D for the recommendations

Machine (a) is used for Magnetostatic and Transient Magnetic applications; it is a three-phase permanent magnet synchronous machine with 8 poles. In Magneto-Transient, the magnets are considered as solid conductors, and the machine is fed by a circuit coupling.

Machine (b) is used in Steady-State AC magnetic application, it is an induction machine with 2 poles also powered by a circuit coupling.

Several simulations are therefore launched with a different mesh (from the coarsest to the finest) with each time a number of cores and a different solver in order to draw up a table recommending the best choices.

Figure 2. Evolution of the mesh in a rotor slot of the induction machine with (a) a coarse mesh and (b) a fine mesh

Several recommendations are provided in the tables below for each of the Flux 2D applications (Transient Magnetic, Steady-State AC magnetic, and Magnetostatic):


Magnetostatic project
Number of nodes in the mesh	0 - 100k	100k - 600k	600k - 1.5M	1.5M +
Recommended number of cores	1	2	4	4 to 8
Minimal memory required	1 GB	2 GB	4 GB	6+ GB
Recommended linear solver	Direct (MUMPS)


Steady-State AC magnetic project
Number of nodes in the mesh	0 - 200k	200k - 500k	500k - 1.5M	1.5M - 5M	5M +
Recommended number of cores	1	2	4	8
Minimal memory required	1 GB	2 GB	4 GB	12 GB	16+ GB
Recommended linear solver	Direct (MUMPS)


Transient Magnetic Project
Number of nodes in the mesh	0 - 100k	100k - 400k	400k - 1.5M	1.5M +
Recommended number of cores	1	2	4	4 to 8
Minimal memory required	500 MB	1 GB	2 GB	4+ GB
Recommended linear solver	Direct (MUMPS)