Visualizing the invisible: How Elomatic uses CFD to perfect cleanroom design
Pharmaceutical manufacturing starts in the cleanroom, where strict control ensures safety and quality. It’s a finely tuned environment where science, safety, and precision engineering converge. A well-functioning cleanroom protects patients, ensures product quality, and safeguards operators. And when it comes to cleanroom design, even the smallest detail can have a significant impact. A slight imbalance in airflow can lead to contamination; a poorly positioned vent can cause turbulence that disrupts sterile conditions.
This is where Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) becomes indispensable
At Elomatic, we use CFD to optimize cleanroom airflow, ensure worker safety, minimize contamination risk, and improve energy efficiency – before construction even begins. By digitally simulating how air, particles, humidity and temperature move through a space, CFD offers a deeper understanding of the environment that traditional design can’t.
“CFD gives us a more realistic vision of how a cleanroom will function,” says Markku Mäkinen, Design Manager at Elomatic. “It helps us solve issues we simply can’t detect using traditional design methods alone.”
By identifying airflow dead zones, predicting the behaviour of particles, and balancing temperature and humidity conditions, CFD reduces risk by empowering smarter, faster design decisions, ultimately saving time, money and resources.
Smarter design through simulation
Cleanrooms are complex environments. Even minor design choices like where equipment is placed or how many operators are present can impact air circulation, cleanliness, contamination control and GMP compliance.
With CFD, Elomatic can simulate these variables and different scenarios early in the design process and recommend optimizations before anything is built.
Simulations help us guide the design in the right direction from the very beginning. Without CFD, you’re making decisions based on assumptions and that’s a risk.
Teemu Nieminen, Sales Manager
CFD is especially valuable in GMP environments where microbial contamination is a critical concern. By simulating particle`s behavior, we can identify areas where cleanroom conditions may be compromised and verify that airflow strategies meet required cleanliness classifications.
Our expertise sets us apart
What makes Elomatic’s approach to CFD unique is how we integrate advanced simulation with deep hands-on experience in cleanroom engineering. We combine decades of experience in cleanroom design, HVAC, and pharmaceutical process with in-house CFD expertise. Our teams collaborate from concept to qualification to ensure a smooth, efficient and insight-driven design process at every step.
“We don’t just run simulations; we understand the full context. We know what operators are doing, how the equipment behaves and what the regulations demand,” continues Markku.
The result? Cleanrooms that perform reliably from day one, with optimized airflow, energy use, operator comfort, and compliance built into the core of the design.
From optional to essential
Once seen as a supplementary tool, CFD is fast becoming a cleanroom design standard. Cleanroom Standardisation organisations like ISO and IEST are increasingly recognizing CFD as a method to verify cleanroom performance. And, as digital tools become more powerful, simulations are more accessible and cost-efficient than ever.
“It’s not just about detecting issues, it’s about guiding the design in the right direction from the very start. CFD allows us to reduce risk, avoid costly design errors, and deliver cleanrooms that work exactly as intended,” continues Teemu.
Whether you’re building a new cleanroom or upgrading an existing one, Elomatic helps you navigate complexity with confidence. With CFD, we make the invisible visible and design cleanrooms that perform with precision.
Contact us
Want to know more?
Cleanrooms
See how modular cleanroom solutions accelerate your project timeline, reduce on-site labor and waste, and deliver a ready-to-use facility complete with operator training. Dive into our case-by-case planning methodology, covering logistics, filtration, automation and lifecycle support.
Fluid Dynamics
Discover how CFD simulations enable you to test, optimize, and validate fluid flows as well as heat and mass transfer without building expensive prototypes—saving you both time and money in development. Learn about our turnkey approach that integrates commercial solvers with proprietary code for reliable, high-performance solutions.