FLOW

Open-source engineering simulation with AI. In your browser.

FLOW lets engineers run structural, thermal, and fluid simulations in the browser. No $50K license. No 6-month training. Open the browser, import your geometry, simulate.

AI-powered solvers (Neural Operators) make simulations 100x faster than traditional FEA. What takes ANSYS 4 hours, FLOW does in 2 seconds.

Why

• ANSYS costs $50K+/year. COMSOL costs $10K+. ABAQUS costs $30K+.
• Free tools (FreeCAD, CalculiX) are clunky, desktop-only, slow.
• Engineers in Africa, Asia, South America have zero access to simulation.
• AI (Neural Operators) can accelerate physics simulation by 100-1000x. This is active research (ICLR 2025, 2026) but nobody has made it a product.

FLOW is that product.

Features

• Structural Analysis — stress, strain, deformation under load
• Thermal Analysis — heat transfer, steady-state and transient
• Fluid Dynamics — laminar flow, basic CFD
• AI Solver — Fourier Neural Operator for real-time results
• 3D Viewer — Three.js-based, interactive, works in browser
• Import — STEP, IGES, STL, OBJ geometry files
• Export — CSV, JSON, VTK result formats
• API — REST API for automation and CI/CD integration
• Self-host — Docker one-liner, runs anywhere

Quick Start

# Backend
cd backend
pip install -r requirements.txt
python -m app.main

# Frontend (separate terminal)
cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

Or with Docker:

docker compose up

Visit http://localhost:5173

Architecture

flow/
├── backend/           # Python FastAPI server
│   ├── app/
│   │   ├── api/       # REST endpoints
│   │   ├── core/      # Config, logging, middleware
│   │   ├── solvers/   # FEA, thermal, fluid solvers
│   │   ├── neural/    # Neural Operator models
│   │   ├── models/    # Database models (SQLAlchemy)
│   │   └── schemas/   # Pydantic request/response schemas
│   └── tests/
├── frontend/          # React + TypeScript + Vite
│   └── src/
│       ├── components/
│       │   ├── viewer/      # 3D geometry viewer
│       │   ├── simulation/  # Simulation controls
│       │   └── ui/          # Shared UI components
│       ├── pages/
│       ├── hooks/
│       └── lib/
├── docker/            # Dockerfiles
├── docs/              # Documentation
├── examples/          # Example simulations
└── scripts/           # Build and deploy scripts

Solvers

Solver	Type	Speed	Use Case
fea_classic	FEM	Baseline	Structural analysis, validation
fea_neural	Neural Operator	100x	Real-time structural
thermal_classic	FEM	Baseline	Heat transfer
thermal_neural	Neural Operator	200x	Real-time thermal
fluid_classic	FVM	Baseline	Laminar CFD
fluid_neural	Neural Operator	500x	Real-time fluid

Comparison

Feature	ANSYS	COMSOL	FreeCAD	FLOW
Price	$50K+	$10K+	Free	Free
Web-based	No	No	No	Yes
AI solver	No	No	No	Yes
Mobile	No	No	No	Yes
Open source	No	No	Yes	Yes
Self-host	No	No	N/A	Yes
API	No	Limited	No	Yes
Learning curve	6 months	3 months	2 months	10 minutes

API

# Create simulation
curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/api/v1/simulations \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name": "bridge-beam", "solver": "fea_neural", "geometry": "beam.step"}'

# Run simulation
curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/api/v1/simulations/1/run

# Get results
curl http://localhost:8000/api/v1/simulations/1/results

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

MIT