Draft. This manual is new and still growing. If something here does not match what you see in the software, the software is right — tell us and we will fix the page.
Installation
SHD Sim is a desktop application. The published installer is for Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
The installer carries the whole application — the interface for every physics module — and fetches the solver backends while it runs. Which ones it fetches is a question it asks you. That means the installation needs a network connection; the finished install does not.
What is in the installer, and what is downloaded
| Layer | What it is | Size |
|---|---|---|
| Embedded in the installer | The application: executable, Qt, OpenCASCADE, the QML for every module, the material library, licence texts | 110–130 MB |
| Fetched during the install | The solver backends, and each module's worked examples | see below |
The installer shows a page headed CHOOSE YOUR PHYSICS with each option's download size, and the hint "Anything you skip can be added later from Settings." It downloads what you selected before it finishes, so you are not interrupted later in the middle of a first simulation.
These are the sizes measured on the staged build tree on 12 August 2026:
| Component | Serves | On disk | Download |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenFOAM v2606 | Fluids | 624 MB after the trim | not separately measured |
| Solid mesher (Netgen 6.2.2606) | Every solid family: structural, thermal, electromagnetics, acoustics, explicit, shape | 151 MB | 54 MB |
| code_aster 18.0.12 | Structural, thermal | 782 MB | 213 MB |
| Elmer 26.2 | Thermal, electromagnetics, acoustics | 96 MB | 38 MB |
| SU2 · OpenRadioss | Shape optimisation · explicit dynamics | not yet measured | — |
So a fluids-only install is the application plus OpenFOAM: roughly 750 MB on disk. There is no defensible figure for "everything", because two of the backends have not been measured. Read the sizes off the installer page, which gets them from the release manifest rather than from this table.
Once a backend is here, it never needs the network again
The network is for acquiring a backend, never for using one. A machine that has fetched OpenFOAM solves fluids cases with no connection at all, permanently. Nothing in the download path consults your licence either — selection is a bandwidth choice, and the free tier runs every analysis type.
Adding a module later
Settings → Integrations lists every physics family the product offers,
whether or not its solvers are installed, and says ready or N to install
against each. Select one and the panel beside it names the engines behind it,
each marked installed with its version or not installed · <size>, with a
Download and install button underneath. Anything you skipped at install
time, or that failed to download, is fetched from there — the same manifest and
the same verification the installer used.
A family whose solver is missing stays visible and offers the download rather than disappearing. Nothing is bought by downloading a module.
System requirements
| Operating system | Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit |
| Memory | 8 GB minimum. 16 GB recommended past roughly 2 million cells |
| Disk | 130 MB for the application, plus the backends you select (see the table above), plus your cases |
| Network | Required during installation, to fetch the backends. Not required afterwards |
| Graphics | Anything with OpenGL 3.3. The viewport is not GPU-hungry |
Memory is the constraint that bites first. Meshing holds more in memory than solving does, so a case that solves comfortably can still fail to mesh.
Install
- Download the installer from shd-sim.com/download.
- Run it. It is a per-user install and needs no administrator rights; the
release manifest declares
requiresElevation: false. - Choose which physics to fetch when it asks. Anything you skip can be added later from Settings.
- Start SHD Sim from the Start menu.
There is no account required to download, and no email wall. The free tier runs every analysis type up to a 250,000-cell mesh — see Licensing and activation.
If the machines you are installing on cannot reach the network at all, an installer with every backend embedded is one of the artefacts the release packer can build. It is not the published default; ask support@shd-sim.com whether one exists for your release.
The portable build
A .zip is published alongside the installer. Unpack it anywhere and run the
executable. Note that a portable copy carries no record of what was fetched for
it — check Settings → Integrations for what it can actually run.
Where things go
| Application | %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\SHD Sim\ — a per-user install, so it needs no administrator |
| Solver backends | Inside the application folder, one directory per component |
| Your cases | Wherever you put them. The application does not impose a workspace |
| Settings and licence | Per-user application data. Settings, including the licence server address, are held in the Windows registry rather than in a file beside the application |
Cases are ordinary folders. Nothing about a case is locked to the machine that made it, and nothing needs the application to read it — the case directory is an OpenFOAM case, and the results are OpenFOAM results.
Uninstalling
Standard Windows uninstall. It does not touch your cases, which are wherever you saved them.
If you are moving to another machine, deactivate the licence first — Settings → Licence, the red Deactivate this machine button, which asks "Deactivate this machine?" before it does anything — or from your account at account.shd-sim.com. A seat that is still held by a machine you no longer have is the most common support question.
Verifying the install
Open the application and press Worked example on the home screen. It opens a menu; pick Validation - lid-driven cavity, Re 100. It is two-dimensional, laminar, 400 cells, and it runs in seconds, which makes it the right one for checking that the install works rather than for looking at.
If it meshes and runs, the application and its fluids backend are both working. That is a better check than anything the installer can report.
If it does not, see Troubleshooting. If the analysis type offers you a download instead of running, the backend it needs was not fetched — go to Settings → Integrations.