Dr. Bharatan R. Patel appointed to SpaceClaim's Board of Directors

CFD Analysis Innovator and Fluent Founder Brings Valuable Engineering Expertise.

Concord, MA: SpaceClaim, a provider of 3D Direct Modeling solutions, today announced the appointment of Dr. Bharatan (Bart) R. Patel to its board of directors. Dr. Patel brings more than 35 years of experience in the engineering industry where he has been a pioneering visionary in analysis software technology.

“SpaceClaim is positioned at the forefront of dramatic change in engineering productivity and product development with the deployment of 3D Direct Modeling,” said Dr. Patel. “Their 3D solution is becoming essential to the engineering community as both product designers and engineers utilize it to make their work more efficient and allow them to bring products to market much faster.”

Prior to his appointment to the board, Dr. Patel served as CEO of Aavid Thermal Technologies after holding the position of COO and president. Dr. Patel came to this position after Aavid acquired Fluent, the company he founded in 1983 to provide modeling and analysis of fluid flow and heat transfer phenomena to a variety of industries. As CEO of Fluent, Dr. Patel grew the company from its inception to become the premier computational fluid dynamics (CFD) provider. ANSYS, Inc. acquired Aavid in 2006.

“The addition to our board of an experienced executive of Bart’s skills and standing is a gratifying endorsement of our company’s vision,” said SpaceClaim CEO Chris Randles. “Bart’s entrepreneurial expertise will be invaluable as we pursue our goal of giving engineers access to the power of 3D Direct Modeling.”

The news of Dr. Patel’s appointment follows the announcement last month that SpaceClaim and ANSYS have reached a licensing and distribution agreement to offer SpaceClaim 3D Direct Modeling as an option within the ANSYS Simulation Driven Product Development™ process. This new ANSYS offering will enable product development and design engineers who are not CAD experts to create and modify 3D geometry models. As a result, engineers can import models from any major CAD system, prep with direct modeling, and move simulation earlier in the product development process, where it can have the most impact on design and cost.