Solutions that fit your needs and experience level
As new materials and methods of manufacturing are being implemented, products are becoming more complex. Products must be lighter and smaller and work harder than ever. Multiphysics simulation lets you explore all the real-world physical interactions a complex product may encounter during use. These interactions can impact product performance, safety and longevity. Fluid forces, thermal effects, structural integrity and electromagnetic radiation can all affect performance. If you isolate these forces and examine them separately, you may not get an accurate prediction of product behaviour. Ansys Multiphysics solutions can help you examine these effects in any combination, achieving the highest fidelity solution to eliminate reliability problems and design safe and effective products.
In an expanding range of applications, engineers and designers must be able to accurately predict how complex products will behave in real-world environments where multiple types of coupled physics interact. Multiphysics simulation software from Ansys allows you to create virtual prototypes of your designs operating under real-world multiphysics conditions. This industry-leading software enables you to simulate the interaction between structural mechanics, heat transfer, fluid flow and electromagnetics all within a single, unified engineering simulation environment.
The image on the left: Thermoelectric cooler model including the Peltier and Seebeck effects, current density (top) and temperature (bottom) shown
Solution Capabilities
Multiphysics simulation from Ansys enables engineers and designers to create virtual prototypes of their designs operating under real-world multiphysics conditions. Ansys Multiphysics provides to the analysis industry the most advanced coupled physics technology within a unified simulation environment, which allows you to simulate the interaction between structural mechanics, heat transfer, fluid flow, acoustics and electromagnetics.
Features include:
- Superior solvers for all physics simulations
- Structural mechanics, heat transfer, fluid flow and electromagnetic
- Flexible multiphysics simulation built on proven solver technology
- A unified simulation environment for multiphysics analysis
- The fully parametric analysis allows the design of experiments, robust design and design optimization for multiphysics solutions
- Parallel scalability for multiphysics analysis
- World-class support and services from Ansys
The image on right: A conjugate heat transfer solution and subsequent thermal-stress analysis of a computer graphics card. Fluid streamlines and solid temperatures (left) and thermal stresses (right) are shown for the coupled simulation.
Solution Benefits
Ansys continues to lead the simulation industry in the development of multiphysics solutions that provide the high-fidelity simulations required to meet the challenges of today’s demanding product development requirements. Ansys Multiphysics provides analysts with a powerful simulation tool for solving the industry’s most challenging multiphysics applications.
The image on left: The Ansys Workbench platform is a powerful multiphysics simulation environment. The project schematic shows the multiphysics workflow for a coupled electric conduction, heat transfer and subsequent thermal stress analysis.
Solutions Chart
Structural Analysis
- Static, modal, harmonic and transient analysis
- Spectrum analysis
- Buckling analysis
- Random vibration
- Geometric, material and contact nonlinearities
- Displacements transferred to thermal, electric, magnetic or fluid analysis
Thermal Analysis
- Steady-state and transient analysis
- Spectrum analysis
- Conduction, convection and radiation
- Phase change
- Mass transport
- Fluid elements
- Temperature-dependent material properties
- Temperatures transferred to structural, electric, magnetic or fluid analysis
Electrostatic Analysis
- Charge-based electric elements
- Trefftz method for open domain
- Electrostatic forces transferred to structural analysis
Steady-State Current Conduction
- Current-based electric elements
- Infinite elements for open domain
- Currents transferred to magnetostatic analysis
- Resistive losses transferred to thermal analysis
Low-Frequency Electric Field Analysis
- Charge and current based elements
- Infinite elements for open domain
- Time-harmonic and time-transient quasistatic
- Resistive and dielectric losses transferred to thermal analysis
- Currents transferred to magnetic analysis
Magnetostatic Analysis
- Magnetic vector potential and scalar potential elements
- 3-D edge flux element formulation
- Resistive losses transferred to thermal analysis
- Magnetic forces transferred to structural analysis
Low-Frequency Magnetic Analysis
- Magnetic vector potential elements
- 3-D edge flux formulation
- Quasistatic magnetic
- Time-harmonic analysis for linear materials
- Time-transient analysis for linear and nonlinear materials
- Permeable and saturable materials
- Permanent magnets
- Resistive and eddy current losses transferred to thermal analysis
- Magnetic forces transferred to structural analysis
High-Frequency Electromagnetic Analysis
- First- and second-order tangential vector elements
- 3-D brick, pyramid, prism and tetrahedral element shapes
- Cavity modal analysis
- Harmonic analysis: wave propagation, radiation and scattering
- Isotropic and anisotropic materials
- SPICE-equivalent circuit output
- Resistive and dielectric losses transferred to thermal analysis
Circuit Analysis and Coupling
- Coupled electromagnetic field analysis and discrete electric circuits
- Resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes, transformers, voltage and current sources
- Electromechanical transducer
- Interactive circuit builder
- Coupling to both stranded and massive conductors
Ion Optics
- Charged-particle tracing in electric or magnetic static fields, or both
- Plot trajectories in 2-D or 3-D
Fluid Flow Analysis
- Tetrahedral, hexahedral, prism and/or pyramid elements
- Steady-state and transient flow
- Laminar and turbulent flows
- Incompressible, compressible – subsonic, transonic, supersonic
- Rotating or stationary frame of reference
- Conjugate heat transfer
- Radiation
- Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids
- User-defined equations and species transport
- Free surface modeling
- Fluid structure interaction
- Fluid pressures and temperatures transferred to structural analysis
- Heat flux and temperatures transferred to thermal analysis
Acoustics
- Modal, harmonic and transient analysis
- Fluid medium
- Fully coupled fluid–structural
Direct Coupled-Field Elements
- Piezoelectricity
- Piezoresistivity
- Piezocaloric effect – Thermoelastic damping
- Coriolis effect
- Electroelasticity
- Thermoelectricity – Joule heating, Peltier, Seebeck and Thomson effects
- Thermal–structural
- Thermal–electric–structural
Sequential Coupling Options
- Electrostatic–structural
- Electrostatic–structural–fluid
- Thermal–structural
- Thermal–electric
- Thermal–electric-structural
- Thermal–electric–fluid
- Thermal–fluid
- Electromagnetic–thermal
- Electromagnetic–structural
- Electromagnetic–fluid
- Electromagnetic–thermal–structural
- Fluid-structure interaction
Optimization
- Design optimization
- Topological optimization
- Probabilistic design
- Variational technology
- Parametric simulation
Ansys Parametric Design Language
- Macros
- Parametric modelling
- If-then-else constructs
- Do-loop features
- Array parameters
- Array parameter operations
- Trigonometric functions
Solvers
- Sparse direct
- Jacobi conjugate gradient (JCG)
- Incomplete Cholesky conjugate gradient (ICCG)
- Pre-conditioned conjugate gradient (PCG)
- Quasi-minimal residual (QMR)
- Algebraic multigrid (AMG)
- Eigensolvers
- Block Lanczos
- PCG Lanczos
- Supermode modal solver
- Householder (reduced)
- Unsymmetric QR-damped
Resources
Brochure
Ansys Systems and Multiphysics Brochure
Case Studies
Ballard Power Systems
SilMach
Articles
Making the Switch
Optimizing a seemingly simple electrical switch device assembly through simulation saves time and reduces costs.
Optimizing Options
The Ansys Workbench environment provides a convenient way to conduct parametric studies for geometry shape and size variations as well as boundary conditions, which can be extended to cover multiphysics simulations within a single working environment. In this example, the effect of a butterfly valve position on the fluid flow rate and pressure drop across the valve is calculated using Ansys FLUENT software, and the effect of fluid pressure on the valve deformation is determined using Ansys Structural capabilities.
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Aligned with the Ansys Vision
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An industry visionary shares insights into the evolution of multiphysics solutions and future challenges to overcome.
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Standing Up Right
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