Fusion360 and CFD

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I'm new to Autodesk and I'm trying to create different objects in Fusion 360 and I would like to test their aerodynamic behavior in Autodesk CFD 2018, but how can I open an object in CFD? All Fusion360 projects are saved in the cloud, but it's a different one then the cloud CFD is using (see pictures). Btw, would Inventor be the better software for my purposes?

Thank you for your time

[paul.clauss · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous

Thanks for posting! While I am not too familiar with CFD, I did find here that most versions of CFD can open STEP and IGES files directly. I do not believe Fusion 360 cloud files can be transferred to your CFD hub currently in A360, but you could export a locally saved STEP or IGES copy of your Fusion design and open it directly in CFD from your computer. It would then be uploaded to your CFD hub when you save the new file in CFD.

Whether to use Fusion 360 or Inventor depends on your modeling needs, as it seems that you are doing your simulation in CFD. Fusion does include some simulation tools, but does not include fluid dynamics capabilities. The situation I would recommend Inventor in would be if you are working with very large assemblies. I believe there are some versions of CFD that can open files directly from Inventor (Inventor is included in the CAD Launchers section for some versions of CFD in the link above - more info here), so this may be a consideration if you work in CFD a lot.

Hopefully this helps! Please let me know if you have any questions. 

[Anonymous]

Hey Paul, 

I hope this account is still active. I am trying to open a file from 2019 Fusion 360 to CFD 2019. 

The issue appears to be in the file types that CFD will recognize are ones that Fusion 360 will not save to.

For example, when I try to open a file from CFD 2019, it will only recognize file types " Files (*.cfdst*cfz), Design studies (*.cfdst), and Share Files (*.cfz).

None of these three are options to save a file as in Autodesk fusion 360.  

Any help is appreciated.

[momobot30]

Where those file types are listed in the file explorer tab, it's a drop down that let's you change the file types to select other types, such as STEP or OBJ files.