To perform their services, GESTE's engineers and technicians rely on several pieces of software, whether commercial, open-source or developed ad hoc by the company's specialists.

This software is installed on our employees' personal computers – Windows PC or Mac OS; on our servers – running Windows or Linux; or on our computing clusters, optimised for our simulations.

Each workstation is equipped with the latest version of classic office software and suites.

Among the tools developed ad hoc by our specialists, we particularly wish to mention TNT  – a complete solver for studies of aerodynamics, ventilation and evacuation of people in tunnels; TunClim  – a thermodynamic solver for studying tunnel thermics – and GESTRAC  – software for calculating traction currents and dimensioning electrical substations for railway and urban transport lines.

AERO- & THERMODYNAMICS

• TNT (Tunnel Nets & Trains)
• TunClim
• NSMB-TNT
• Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS)
• ANSYS Fluent et Simcenter STAR-CCM+

PEDESTRIAN FLOW

• TNT
• SimWalk Transport
• Pathfinder

VISUALISATION

• Tecplot 360
• ParaView
• Smokeview

ENERGY

• GESTRAC

Railway track layout

• Bentley OpenRail Designer
• Toporail

RAMS

• ITEM ToolKit
• Reliability Workbench

CAD & BIM

• Bentley
• AutoCAD

ERP

• Odoo

TNT (Tunnel Nets & Trains) is a 1D aerodynamic solver developed and validated by GESTE to digitally simulate compressible and non-stationary flows induced by the movement of vehicles in confined spaces with complex geometry, such as road or rail tunnels. It also simulates the propagation of smoke in the event of a tunnel fire, taking into account ventilation and moving vehicles. It additionally performs evacuation simulations.

TunClim, fully developed and validated by GESTE, is a 2x1D thermodynamic solver for calculating long-term changes in air and rock temperature for deep tunnel networks. TunClim integrates parameters such as air flow, air humidity, heat sources and wells, and heating/cooling systems.

NSMB is a compressible and unsteady CFD software developed, among others, by various universities (EPFL in Lausanne, SERAM in Paris, IMFT in Toulouse and KTH in Stockholm), a research centre (CERFACS in Toulouse) and various industrial partners such as EADS-France, SAAB Military Aircraft and CFS Engineering. GESTE and its collaborators, within the framework of research projects with EPFL, dynamically coupled NSMB (3D) and TNT (1D) for a precise study of aerodynamic phenomena in long tunnels, by simulating the flow near vehicles in 3D and the distant flow in 1D. A thermal and fire simulation model has also been integrated.

GESTE also regularly uses commercial or open-source CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) software.

FDS and Smokeview are the product of an international collaboration between the American National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. FDS is a piece of fluid mechanics software dedicated specifically to air flows induced by the development of fires. It digitally solves a simplified form of the Navier-Stokes equations adapted to low-speed and thermo-controlled flows, with an emphasis on the transport of smoke and heat. The modelling approaches used take into account turbulence phenomena, combustion reactions and thermal radiation.

ANSYS Fluent and Simcenter STAR-CCM+ are pieces of software capable of handling complex fluid problems. Different 3D digital solvers solve the physics of non-stationary and compressible flows. Specific models are used to model turbulence, heat transfer, combustion and multi-phase flows in particular.

To simulate pedestrian flows, in addition to the model integrated in TNT, GESTE relies on various commercial software.

SimWalk Transport is a software used to simulate and analyse the movements of trains and road vehicles as well as pedestrian flows. It flexibly and realistically simulates both normal behaviour and panic situations in complex environments, stations, buildings, junctions, etc.

Pathfinder is a pedestrian flow simulator. It contains a user interface to extract horizontal and vertical circulation spaces from buildings (stairs, ramps, elevators), configure the occupants' characteristics (gender, speed of movement, behaviour) and present realistic 3D animations. It is used to assess the comfort and safety of pedestrians in structures open to the public (stations, airports, shopping centres, sports arenas).

Tecplot 360 is technical data visualisation software used, among other things, to analyse data from the digital simulation of fluid mechanics problems.

ParaView is open-source and cross-platform data analysis and visualisation software. Data can be exploited interactively in 3D or by programme using batch processing capabilities. It is a post-processing tool well suited to digitally simulating fluid mechanics problems.

Smokeview is visualisation software used to display the results of FDS simulations.

GESTRAC is a calculation tool developed and validated by GESTE to digitally simulate traction currents, allowing optimisation of the infrastructure (substations, cables, contact lines) according to energy needs, and dimensioning of traction current substations for railway and urban lines

To calculate and optimise railway layouts, GESTE uses the OpenRail Designer software, a 3D modelling tool for railway installations (tracks, railway infrastructure, drainage, superstructure, platforms, contact line, etc.). OpenRail Designer allows comprehensive rail route studies, including dynamic calculations. Furthermore, GESTE integrates its track profiles into BIM models, which allow true 3D processing of all the layers making up the railway but also all the rail infrastructure and equipment.

GESTE, in collaboration with its partners, is able to calculate its track layouts with Toporail® software, developed and maintained by Swiss Federal Railways.

GESTE, among other in-house tools, uses ITEM ToolKit and Reliability Workbench for its RAMS studies.

GESTE implements its projects using standard AutoCAD plans or by applying new BIM tools to integrate safety installations into a complete 3D model

GESTE uses the open-source ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) Odoo for the administrative management of the company (including accounting and invoicing, human resources, timesheets, resource planning and recruitment) and project management.