CFD for AEC

CFD for AEC

Shows how wind moves around and between your buildings, straight from the Revit model. Pick the elements that block the wind, set where it comes from, and see windy corners, sheltered courtyards, channelling between blocks and long wakes, as a plan heat map, a section along the wind and a full 3D field you can orbit, animate and hand to a client as a single file. When a design needs more than an early comparison, the same model and wind go out to a full OpenFOAM study and the solved result comes back into Revit.

When to use it

• Comparing massing options early: which arrangement shelters the courtyard, which corner accelerates the wind.
• Checking every prevailing direction for a site, from a wind rose you type or import from a weather file.
• Showing the wind field in a design review, as a moving 3D presentation, a still image with its legend, a video or a drafting view in Revit.
• Preparing a detailed study for a wind engineer, with the geometry, tunnel and inlet already set.

How to use

1. Open CFD for AEC from BimCode's plugin list inside Revit, with the project open.
2. Choose what blocks the wind. On Geometry, pick categories, the current Revit selection, a name filter or a parameter rule, and the ground level. Preview the included elements and isolate them in Revit to check.
3. Set the wind. Speed and the direction it comes from (west is 270°). On Rapid CFD and 3D Wind Tunnel you can also drag the wind compass and let go to solve again from the new direction.
4. Solve. GPU Wind solves the whole 3D field on this computer's graphics card. Rapid CFD solves one plan height in seconds; the 3D Wind Tunnel stacks several heights; Wind Rose runs every direction of the rose.
5. Look and present. Move the plan height and the section, orbit the 3D field, play particles and moving arrows, then save an image, a video, an offline 3D page, or animated files for Twinmotion and Unreal. Show the result in a Revit view with Revit's own analysis colours.
6. Go detailed when it matters. OpenFOAM exports the same model and tunnel as a full 3D study, runs it on Windows, and imports the solved field back for presentation and Revit display.

Or open AI setup, describe the study in a sentence, review the settings BimCode AI proposes, and apply them. The plugin works fully without AI.

Good to know

• The quick solvers are for comparing options. They are not a wind-comfort, safety, façade-pressure or code check; use the detailed study and have it reviewed for those.
• Glass and closed doors block the wind exactly as they are modelled; a real opening in the model lets it through.
• Settings save themselves. Named setups can be saved, exported and imported into another project.
• The detailed study needs the free blueCFD-Core (OpenFOAM for Windows), which the plugin can download and check for you. Animated FBX export uses Blender if it is installed; animated GLB needs nothing extra.

User guide · Development notes