Amplify Engineering

CAD Meshing Automation

CAD models often contain many parts, gaps or contact between parts. The larger the number of parts, contacts and gaps, the dirtier the geometry is. CFD engineers are responsible for cleaning geometry from a CAD file to extract the fluid volume and create the mesh: This is often cumbersome and time consuming. In ANSYS 14.0, the assembly meshing tool automatically extracts the fluid volume from CAD assemblies. Furthermore, it automatically creates either cut-cell structured Cartesian meshes (hexahedral mesh elements) or unstructured tetrahedral meshes (cut-tet), depending on user goals and preferences.

The cut-cell technique provides a smaller number of cells and is ideal when high-quality cells are required away from walls or boundaries. The cut-tet technique is ideal when high-quality mesh elements are required in regions close to walls. Inflation layers are supported for both meshing techniques to allow accurate resolution of regions of large gradients (for example, shear layers and boundary layers). Using the assembly meshing tool, users who once spent a considerable amount of time on analysis pre-processing — geometry cleaning, fluid volume extraction and volume decomposition to create hexa/tetrahedral hybrid meshes — can now get meshes of high quality in an automated, robust and fast manner.

ANSYS Workbench Meshing automatically extracts and meshes the fluid volume from complex CAD assemblies. This example shows a cut-cell hexahedral mesh; you also can create tetrahedral meshes. For both approaches, inflation layers to resolve near-wall flows are supported.

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Workflow Performance & Usability

Simulating a single operating condition provides performance information, but engineers gain more design insight by simulating the entire performance envelope. ANSYS Workbench provides a framework for design exploration and optimization by enabling parametric modeling of geometric configurations, mesh controls, material properties, and operating conditions, leading to an automated simulation process. ANSYS 14.0 allows design point updates to be submitted for simultaneous execution via the remote solve manager (RSM), including cluster computing environments.

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Geometry Modeling and Interoperability for Simulation

Modeling operations in ANSYS DesignModeler now directly accept geometry entities (like faces, edges, vertices, etc.), in addition to supporting named selections and sketches. In ANSYS 14.0, all features and tools are available for customization and exposure via the toolbars to help users customize the interface with frequently used features along with tools for easy and direct access. Several hot keys have been added for frequently repeated operations to reduce the number of steps for a given task. Other related improvements in ANSYS 14.0 include automatic freeze during slice, better error handling, easy toggle between single and box select options, and visualization controls for edge direction and vertices to identify and fix topological issues.

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Parametric Modeling and Design Optimization

The adjoint solver of ANSYS Fluent allows engineers to compute the derivative of engineering quantities of interest (such as drag, lift and pressure drop) with respect to the shape of the geometry and other design parameters. This provides guidance on how best to modify the design to achieve an improvement in performance and robustness. It also provides a rapid quantitative estimate of the improvement that can be expected for an extensive range of design-change scenarios. The power of adjoint technology is the ability to gain far more insight using a single simulation than previously possible. Tight integration with ANSYS Fluent ensures that reliable and consistent design sensitivities are computed.

The adjoint solver indicates what portion of the geometry to modify and how to modify it to obtain the optimized down-force on this Formula One design.

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MAPDL/ANSYS Workbench Integration

ANSYS 14.0 introduces a number of features that allow the user to control various components of the finite element model within the mechanical environment. All connections such as constraint equations, spiders or weak springs can now be visualized. Users can create selections of nodes using selection logic. For example, these selections can be used to apply loads and boundary conditions that can be modified during restart operations.

A user can create named selections of nodes using selection logic similar. For example, a group of nodes in a spherical or box volume can be selected independently of the underlying geometry.

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Composites

Simulation of composites structures brings additional challenges, such as the definition of hundreds or thousands of plies on a structure, including various orientations, or ply-by-ply analysis of the structure’s potential failure. A dedicated tool such as ANSYS Composite PrepPost provides significant ease of use for such models. Release 14.0 tightly integrates ANSYS Composite PrepPost with other simulation in ANSYS Workbench. Release 14.0 provides specific modeling techniques for analysis of composites failure such as progressive failure.

Courtesy TU Chemnitz and GHOST Bikes GmbH.

ANSYS Composite PrepPost is part of the project page and streamlines data exchange with implicit or explicit solutions. The bicycle example is computed using the implicit solver, while the baseball bat is solved with an explicit simulation.

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External Data Mapping

When results are to be shared between physics, standard practice is to import data, such as pressure fields, temperatures or heat exchange coefficients, from external files. Automated algorithms provide a very efficient tool to project the data from one mesh to another. However, some problems can arise in cases of misalignment between the original data and the current mesh, or when the initial data is too scarce. The capabilities introduced at ANSYS release 13.0 have been enhanced to provide users with additional control and correction capabilities in ANSYS 14.0.

Import of a temperature field on a blade: actual temperature field (left); results form one validation tool that assesses quality of interpolated data (right)

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Turbomachinery

ANSYS 14.0 introduces the ability to identify critical speeds of single-spool systems with Campbell plots for solid and line bodies within ANSYS Mechanical, therefore allowing Workbench users to take advantage of solver technology in an efficient way.

Geometries can be automatically created using a simple text file definition, as used in preliminary design.

Campbell diagrams in ANSYS Mechanical diagram shows the variation of the modes of the structure with the velocity and critical speeds are identified as well as the stability of each mode.

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Beams & Shells

ANSYS Mechanical introduces the ability for a user to toggle between pipe and beam formulation of line bodies; it also offers the ability to define pipe-specific loads and results. ANSYS 14.0 supports the latest generation of pipe elements available from the MAPDL solver.

Users can import non-uniform thickness fields in the form of tabulated data using the external data capability. This enables direct import of bodies with variable shell thickness from simulation programs, such as ANSYS Polyflow, and the simulation of complex events, such as a plastic bottle drop test with variable thickness being dropped when filled with a liquid.

Mesh connections: while the geometry (left) consists of disconnected surfaces, the mesh is fully connected – without requiring merging the geometry.

Mesh connections have been enhanced to allow users to merge nodes between adjacent faces without requiring geometric changes, to ensure that shared edges are available in the geometric model. This capability enhances the robustness and efficiency of meshing large shell models.

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Robust Explicit Solutions

Nodal-based strain (NBS) tet eliminates numerically difficulties encountered in the past: When using tet elements in applications that undergo shear, it result in elements locking. Hex elements are best suited for use with explicit dynamics. However, complex geometries can be difficult or impossible to mesh with hex elements. The average nodal pressure (ANP) tet, implemented about a decade ago in ANSYS Explicit Dynamics, solves the difficulties of volume locking but not shear locking. Available with ANSYS 14.0, the NBS tet element enables running problems with shear loadings with highly accurate solutions.

The new tetrahedral element helps quickly model complex geometries while preserving solution accuracy.

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ANSYS HFSS for ECAD

With the new Ansoft Designer links capability, engineers can create fully solvable ANSYS HFSS models while working in any Cadence layout tool (Allegro, Virtuoso and SiP). Thus, an engineer no longer needs to be expert at using  HFSS, since all the modeling steps are automated and can be done while in the Cadence environment.

For non-Cadence users, it is possible to use the ODB format and bring layouts directly into Designer. Once in Designer, the user can work in our layout editor and very easily and quickly make changes to the imported layout or automatically assign excitations and solve the imported structure using the HFSS Solver on Demand capability.

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ANSYS SIwave Accuracy & Usability Enhancements

ANSYS SIwave introduces significant improvements in the calculation of vias and their associated structures. Enhancements include characterization of arbitrary anti-pad shapes and, in certain instances, coupled models for vias that are in close proximity. There is also an improved method to handle unreferenced signal traces during simulation.

ANSYS SIwave includes the capability to run HSPICE or ANSYS Nexxim transient simulations directly from within SIwave. Once a simulation is finished, the engineer can simulate and plot time-domain waveforms for signal nets directly from within the SIwave tool.

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3-D IC Packages

IC package manufacturers have continued to evolve more complex packaging technologies, such as system-on-chip, stacked die, and multi-chip modules, in an effort to maintain continually increasing chip performance. Three-dimensional packages such as a stacked die, in which multiple dies are stacked vertically in the same package, have unique thermal requirements. Three-dimensional structures don't spread heat evenly throughout the chip, which creates local hot spots. With ANSYS Icepak 14.0, engineers can simulate thermal response of 3-D stacked dies and package-on-package configurations.

Fluid streamlines and temperature contours for a 1U network server; multi-level hex-dominant mesh accurately represents the complex geometry.

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Electronics Cooling Workflow & Usability

ANSYS Icepak 14.0 contains a new graphical user interface with new icons, redesigned menus and dialog boxes, expanded right-click functionality, enhanced graphics, and many additional productivity enhancements. Improvements to ANSYS DesignModeler enable engineers to rapidly simplify and create Icepak objects from mechanical CAD data. New variables in ANSYS CFD-Post (thermal chokepoint and thermal cross) allow engineers to identify areas with high thermal resistances and possible regions for a new heat flow path.

New modern and user-friendly ANSYS Icepak user Interface

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ANSYS EKM Product Installation & Setup

ANSYS EKM 14.0 brings new capabilities with important changes to simplify installation and licensing with EKM Individual and EKM Shared Products.

A scalable solution, EKM supports single users and shared configurations with a flexible and simple licensing model. It allows for connections to local or remote repositories, encouraging CAE collaboration across dispersed teams.

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ANSYS EKM Productivity Enhancements

Integration with ANSYS Workbench allows saving current Workbench projects directly to a selected EKM repository as well as searching for a Workbench project and opening it from a selected repository. Tighter integration with Workbench facilitates collaboration with ongoing projects and allows multiple users to leverage the work that is being done by colleagues. There are numerous usability enhancements for search and audit trail that foster increased productivity.

You can open and save ANSYS Workbench projects directly in EKM, which facilitates updating the local copy and versioning on current projects. Our technology enables multiple users to leverage the work that colleagues perform as well. The tool extracts project-level meta-data to automatically generate an extensive Workbench project report that summarizes component systems and all related aspects. You can use data to display, identify, search and re-use archived Workbench projects.

Simulate Complex Systems

Automotive Modeling

The ANSYS Workbench IC engine analysis system compresses setup time by automating steps in geometry setup, meshing, mesh motion, cold flow setup and post-processing. Improvements that include the boundary layer during dynamic remeshing enable users to better capture wall effects and improve mesh quality. ANSYS technologies enable fast and high-fidelity simulations of internal combustion engines.

The  ANSYS IC engine analysis system allows you to create CFD models and meshes for IC Engines, including engines with ports and moving valves.  IC engine-specific setup tools enables setting up complete simulation in an extremely fast and efficient manner.

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Two-Way Coupling

Simultaneously leveraging the capabilities of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational structural dynamics facilitates high-fidelity analysis of complex multiphysics problems. A well-known example is fluid−structure interaction (FSI). For example, FSI can be the interaction between forces exercised by fluid on a solid structure, leading to deformation of the structure. This deformation can, in turn, influence flow behavior and its impact on the structure. Another example of FSI is the interaction between fluid and structure temperatures: Large differences in temperatures can lead to structural deformation (solid material dilatation or contraction) as well as changes in fluid dynamics (flow dilatation or contraction). ANSYS 14.0 adds two-way FSI capabilities between ANSYS Fluent and ANSYS Mechanical to the multiphysics portfolio for simulating complex phenomena like flutter.

Two-way transient analysis of blood flow through a three-leaf mitral valve. The fluid is non-Newtonian and the material is an anisotropic hyperelastic tissue.

The new system coupling component allows you to easily setup multi-physics simulations. In this example, the system coupling component is used to setup a 2-way FSI between ANSYS Fluent and ANSYS Mechanical.

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Advanced Modeling

ANSYS 14.0 introduces a variety of new materials and enhancements to existing models. Biomedical applications can benefit from enhanced material formulations such as the Holzapfel model to capture behavior of fiber-reinforced tissue or shape-memory alloys for stents modeling.

Moisture diffusion has been implemented in thermal, structural and coupled simulations for electronic components. ANSYS acoustics capabilities for coupled analyses have been expanded to include far-field parameters calculations as well as an enhanced PML formulation. Large deformation simulations benefit from extension of 3-D rezoning capabilities to a number of loads and boundary conditions as well as support of a wider range of nonlinear materials. ANSYS provides the best solution for brake squeal analyses including complex Eigen-methods to predict onset of squeal, new state-of-the-art linear methods and parametric studies.

Coupled acoustics allow simulating speakers. Results display capabilities range from pressure fields in the field volume to far-field results.
Numerous advances in material models are available, such as shape memory alloy enhancements for stent analysis (left) or plasticity-induced heating as used in friction stir welding operations (right).
Moisture can critically affect electronics components such as PBGAs. Simulation results show moisture diffusion in a PBGA after 160 hours.

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Expanded Low-Frequency, Structural and Fluids Coupling

A one-way electromagnetic coupling with Fluent allows temperature feedback into electromagnetic designs based on a high level of accuracy provided by the CFD design simulation. This capability enables you to evaluate a variety of cooling system topologies and impacts to electromagnetic motor/generator behavior; the entire system can be optimized employing ANSYS Workbench.

Two-way electromagnetic coupling with stress analysis addresses effects due to electromagnetic force generation on electromagnetic structures that cause geometries to undergo deformations. The deformed geometries are automatically read by the electromagnetic software platform, which further recalculates electromagnetic field distribution. Thus, electromagnetic characteristics on the deformed structures are evaluated. Based on the coupling designed flow, the stress feedback can be used when thermal−stress simulation is involved.

Heating of a bus bar computed in ANSYS Maxwell (left). Results are exported to ANSYS Fluent to compute the surrounding air temperature (right).

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Eulerian Wall Film Modeling

The Eulerian wall film model is new in the multiphase model family; it predicts the generation and dynamics of a liquid wall film created by  accumulation of droplets, including liquid splashing, particles stripping, and film separation at wall edges. The behavior of incoming and separated liquid droplets is modeled via coupling with the discrete phase model (DPM). Both momentum and energy convection and diffusion inside the film are accurately modeled, allowing simulations as challenging as run-back on an aircraft wing or a car windshield.

Visualization of the thickness of water film created by rain droplet accumulation on a car side mirror. Also shown are the water droplets stripped from the film. For clarity, the incoming rain droplets are not shown.

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Poly-Dispersed Flow Modeling

Understanding the behavior and dynamics of poly-dispersed and/or dense multiphase flows is of major interest for many industrial processes that involve sprays, gas−solid flows, gas−liquid flows, etc. (for example, injectors, fluidized beds and bubble columns). ANSYS 14.0 includes enhanced models for particulate flows and phase change processes. For example, you can model particulate flows with particle size distributions in both Eulerian and Lagrangian frameworks. You also can better predict burn-out in boiling applications.

Coal particles in a fluidized bed: The different particles are colored by diameters. The lighter particles are in suspension, the heavier particles are packed at the bottom of the device. This is a typical example in which the discrete element model is coupled with the dense discrete particle model to achieve a high level of accuracy.

Drive Innovation with HPC

Fluids Solver and HPC Performance

ANSYS is committed to providing solver and HPC enhancements release by release. ANSYS 14.0 features a comprehensive suite including architecture-aware partitioning, improved scalability for simulations with monitors enabled, and the full release of remote solver manager supporting heterogeneous networks. There is also support of automatic marking of bad-quality cells and invocation of more robust numerics on these cells for improved solver robustness and overall accuracy.

Parallel scalability results of the simulation of a structure's aerodynamics, 111 million cells. Scalability performances are excellent, as shown in this comparison with ideal scalability. Results are shown for up to 1,500 processors; excellent scalability up to 3,000 processors has been demonstrated.

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Turbomachinery modeling

The transient blade row methods in ANSYS CFX 14.0 are designed to operate on single blade passages and are targeted at three classes of problems. First, an inlet disturbance can be set up that has a different phase angle than the passage. Second, a moving mesh can be implemented in the blade passage to simulate blade flutter, in which the flutter motion is out of phase with the blade passage. Finally, a full-stage (rotor stator) can be simulated with two single blade passages, in which the pitch angles of the passages are different from one another. In all cases, significant savings in computational cost is achieved, as these problems would require a full-wheel mesh to solve without these models. Applications in turbomachinery include multistage axial, mixed, and centrifugal compressors, turbines, fans, and pumps.

Typical simulations of compressors/turbines systems with different pitch (different number of blades between each stage) require computation of large sectors of the system. If no symmetry can be found, a full 360-degree simulation is required (upper left). Using the new transient blade row models in ANSYS CFX, such simulation can be accomplished at a fraction of the computational cost, simulating only two to three blade passages (upper right). This is possible without any loss in accuracy, as shown in the graph comparing the results between a full-scale system and a reduced system in which  the transient blade row model is used (results show static pressure history at a point of interest).

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HPC for Structures

The computation of large models has become a routine practice for many engineers. Available hardware power is steadily growing and benefits from the latest advances, such as the GPU board. Engineers who want to take full advantage of hardware must have suitable algorithms available. Once the model has been solved efficiently, reviewing the results takes further large resources because of file size and large amount of I/O. With ANSYS Mechanical 14.0, users can take advantage of the latest generation of GPU boards as well as minimize the amount of I/O required for post-processing operations.

Multiple GPUs used on nodes of a cluster improve reduce computation time; example is solder ball model with 4M DOF, creep strain analysisResults courtesy MicroConsult Engineering, GmbH.

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Finite Array Analysis

The analysis of finite-sized antenna arrays has been a very important topic in antenna design. Due to the large electrical size of antenna arrays, it has been problematic to simulate with any 3-D simulator. As a result, a generally accepted method is to solve single antennas and then use a linked boundary approach to create an infinitely large array or utilize an array factor to create a finite array. This method, however, neglects all array edge effects and, therefore, calculates erroneous far-field patterns. The new ANSYS finite array capability models the finite array exactly; it therefore predicts the proper far fields that include array edge effects.

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Physical Optics Solver

A special class of large electromagnetic structures includes aircraft and ships. Traditionally, these types of models have been too large to be solved by a 3-D full-wave electromagnetic solver. As a result, it is common practice to use physical optics codes. This solution allows for fast and reasonably accurate evaluation of extremely large electromagnetic problems. ANSYS HFSS offers this solver in addition to the standard finite element and integral equation solvers.

ANSYS Workbench

Workflow Performance & Usability

Simulating a single operating condition provides performance information, but engineers gain more design insight by simulating the entire performance envelope. ANSYS Workbench provides a framework for design exploration and optimization by enabling parametric modeling of geometric configurations, mesh controls, material properties, and operating conditions, leading to an automated simulation process. ANSYS 14.0 allows design point updates to be submitted for simultaneous execution via the remote solve manager (RSM), including cluster computing environments.

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Geometry Modeling & Interoperability for Simulation

Modeling operations in ANSYS DesignModeler now directly accept geometry entities (like faces, edges and vertices), in addition to supporting named selections and sketches. In ANSYS 14.0, all features and tools are available for customization and exposure via  toolbars to help users customize the interface with frequently used features, along with tools for easy and direct access. Several hot keys enable frequently repeated operations, reducing the number of steps for a given task. Other related improvements in ANSYS 14.0 include automatic freeze during slice, better error handling, easy toggle between single and box select options, and visualization controls for edge direction and vertices to identify and fix topological issues.

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ANSYS EKM Product Installation & Setup

ANSYS EKM 14.0 brings new capabilities with  important changes to simplify installation and licensing with EKM Individual and EKM Shared products.

A scalable solution, EKM supports single users and shared configurations with a flexible and simple licensing model. It allows for connections to local or remote repositories, encouraging CAE collaboration across dispersed teams.

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ANSYS EKM Productivity Enhancements

Integration with ANSYS Workbench allows saving current Workbench projects directly to a selected EKM repository as well as searching for a Workbench project and opening it from a selected repository. Tighter integration with Workbench facilitates collaboration with ongoing projects and allows multiple users to leverage the work being done by colleagues. There are numerous usability enhancements for search and audit trail, fostering increased productivity.

You can open and save ANSYS Workbench projects directly in EKM, which facilitates updating the local copy and versioning on current projects. Our technology enables multiple users to leverage the work that colleagues perform as well. The tool extracts project-level meta-data to automatically generate an extensive Workbench project report that summarizes component systems and all related aspects. You can use data to display, identify, search and re-use archived Workbench projects.

Structural Mechanics

MAPDL - ANSYS Workbench Integration

ANSYS 14.0 introduces a number of features that allow the user to control various components of the finite element model within the mechanical environment. All connections such as constraint equations, spiders or weak springs can now be visualized. Users can create selections of nodes using selection logic. For example, these selections can be used to apply loads and boundary conditions that can be modified during restart operations.

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Composites

Simulation of composites structures brings additional challenges, such as the definition of hundreds or thousands of plies on a structure, including various orientations, or ply-by-ply analysis of the structure’s potential failure. A dedicated tool such as ANSYS Composite PrepPost provides significant ease of use for such models. Release 14.0 tightly integrates Composite PrepPost with other simulation in ANSYS Workbench. Release 14.0 provides specific modeling techniques for analysis of composites failure, such as progressive failure.

Courtesy TU Chemnitz and GHOST Bikes GmbH.

ANSYS Composite PrepPost is part of the project page and streamlines data exchange with implicit or explicit solutions. The bicycle (above) is computed using the implicit solver, while the baseball bat (below) is solved with explicit simulation.

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External Data Mapping

When results are to be shared between physics, standard practice is to import data, such as pressure fields, temperatures or heat exchange coefficients, from external files. Automated algorithms provide an efficient tool to project the data from one mesh to another. However, some problems can arise in cases of misalignment between the original data and the current mesh, or when the initial data is too scarce. The capabilities introduced at ANSYS release 13.0 have been enhanced to provide users with additional control and correction capabilities in ANSYS 14.0.

Import of temperature field on a blade: actual temperature field (left); results of one of the validation tools available to assess quality of  interpolated data (right)

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Turbomachinery

ANSYS 14.0 introduces the ability to identify critical speeds of single-spool systems with Campbell plots for solid and line bodies within ANSYS Mechanical, therefore allowing Workbench users to take advantage of solver technology in an efficient way.

ANSYS 14.0 automatically creates geometries using a simple text file definition, as used in preliminary design.

Campbell diagrams in ANSYS Mechanical diagram show variation of the modes of the structure with velocity and critical speeds identified along with the stability of each mode.

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Beams & Shells

ANSYS Mechanical introduces the ability  to toggle between pipe and beam formulation of line bodies; it also offers the ability to define pipe-specific loads and results. ANSYS 14.0 supports the latest generation of pipe elements available from the MAPDL solver.

Users can import non-uniform thickness fields in the form of tabulated data using the external data capability. This enables direct import of bodies with variable shell thickness from simulation programs, such as ANSYS Polyflow, and the simulation of complex events, such as a plastic bottle drop test, with variable thickness being dropped when filled with a liquid.

Mesh connections: While the geometry (left) consists of disconnected surfaces, the mesh (right) is fully connected – without requiring merging the geometry.

Mesh connections allow users to merge nodes between adjacent faces without requiring geometric changes, to ensure that shared edges are available in the geometric model. This capability enhances the robustness and efficiency of meshing large shell models.

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Robust Explicit Solutions

Nodal-based strain (NBS) tet eliminates numerical difficulties encountered in the past when using tet elements in problems that undergo shear that results in elements locking. Hex elements are best suited for use with explicit dynamics. However, complex geometries can be difficult or impossible to mesh with hex elements. The average nodal pressure (ANP) tet, implemented about a decade ago in ANSYS Explicit Dynamics, solves the difficulties of volume locking but not shear locking. Available with ANSYS 14.0, the NBS tet element enables running problems with shear loadings with highly accurate solutions.

The new tetrahedral element helps quickly model complex geometries while preserving solution accuracy.

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Two-Way Coupling

Simultaneously leveraging the capabilities of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational structural dynamics  facilitates high-fidelity analysis of complex multiphysics problems. A well-known example is fluid−structure interaction (FSI). For example, FSI can be the interaction between forces exercised by the fluid on the solid structure, leading to deformation of the structure. This deformation can, in turn, influence flow behavior and its impact on the structure. Another example of FSI is the interaction between fluid and structure temperatures: Large differences in temperatures can lead to structural deformation (solid material dilatation or contraction) as well as changes in fluid dynamics (flow dilatation or contraction). ANSYS 14.0 adds two-way FSI capabilities between ANSYS Fluent and ANSYS Mechanical to the multiphysics portfolio for simulating complex phenomena like flutter.

Two-way transient analysis of blood flow through a three-leaf mitral valve. The fluid is non-Newtonian and the material is an anisotropic hyperelastic tissue.

The new system coupling component allows you to easily set up multiphysics simulations. In this example, the system coupling component is used to set up a two-way FSI between ANSYS Fluent and ANSYS Mechanical.

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Advanced Modeling

ANSYS 14.0 introduces a variety of new materials and enhancements to existing models. Biomedical applications can benefit from enhanced material formulations such as the Holzapfel model to capture behavior of fiber-reinforced tissue or shape-memory alloys for stent modeling.

Moisture diffusion has been implemented in thermal, structural and coupled simulations for electronic components. ANSYS acoustics capabilities for coupled analyses include far-field parameters calculations as well as an enhanced PML formulation. Large deformation simulations benefit from extension of 3-D rezoning capabilities to a number of loads and boundary conditions as well as support of a wider range of nonlinear materials. ANSYS provides the best solution for brake squeal analyses including complex Eigen-methods to predict onset of squeal, new state-of-the-art linear methods and parametric studies.

Coupled acoustics allow simulating speakers. Results display capabilities range from pressure fields in the field volume to far-field results.
Numerous advances in material models are available, such as shape memory alloy enhancements for stent analysis (left) and plasticity induced heating as used in friction stir welding operations (right).
Moisture can critically affect electronics components such as PBGAs. Simulation results show moisture diffusion in a PBGA after 160 hours.

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HPC for Structures

The computation of large models has become a routine practice for many engineers. Available hardware power is steadily growing and benefits from latest advances such as the GPU board. Engineers who want to take full advantage of hardware must have suitable algorithms available. Once the model has been solved efficiently, reviewing results takes further large resources because of file size and the large amount of I/O. With ANSYS Mechanical 14.0, users can take advantage of the latest generation of GPU boards as well as minimize the amount of I/O required for post-processing operations.

Multiple GPU used on nodes of a cluster reduce computation time; example of solder ball model with 4M DOF, creep strain analysisResults courtesy MicroConsult Engineering, GmbH.

Fluid Dynamics

CFD Meshing Automation

CAD models often contain many parts, gaps or contact between parts. The larger the number of parts, contacts and gaps, the dirtier the geometry is. CFD engineers are responsible for cleaning geometry from a CAD file to extract the fluid volume and create the mesh: This is often cumbersome and time consuming. In ANSYS 14.0, the assembly meshing tool automatically extracts the fluid volume from CAD assemblies. Furthermore, it automatically creates either cut-cell structured Cartesian meshes (hexahedral mesh elements) or unstructured tetrahedral meshes (cut-tet), depending on user goals and preferences.

The cut-cell technique provides a smaller number of cells and is ideal when high-quality cells are required away from walls or boundaries. The cut-tet technique is ideal when high-quality mesh elements are required in regions close to walls. Inflation layers are supported for both meshing techniques to allow accurate resolution of regions of large gradients (for example, shear layers and boundary layers). Using the assembly meshing tool, users who once spent a considerable amount of time on analysis pre-processing — geometry cleaning, fluid volume extraction and volume decomposition to create hexa/tetrahedral hybrid meshes — can now get meshes of high quality in an automated, robust and fast manner.

ANSYS Workbench Meshing automatically extracts and meshes the fluid volume from complex CAD assemblies. This example shows cut-cell hexahedral mesh; tetrahedral meshes can also be created. For both approaches, inflation layers to resolve near-wall flows are supported.

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Parametric Modeling and Design Optimization

The adjoint solver of ANSYS Fluent allows engineers to compute the derivative of engineering quantities of interest (such as drag, lift and pressure drop) with respect to the shape of the geometry and other design parameters. This provides guidance on how best to modify the design to achieve an improvement in performance and robustness. It also provides a rapid quantitative estimate of the improvement that can be expected for an extensive range of design-change scenarios. The power of adjoint technology is the ability to gain far more insight using a single simulation than previously possible. Tight integration with Fluent ensures that reliable and consistent design sensitivities are computed.

The adjoint solver indicates what portion of the geometry to modify and how to modify it to obtain the optimized down-force on this Formula One design.

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Electronics Cooling Workflow & Usability

ANSYS Icepak 14.0 contains a new graphical user interface with new icons, redesigned menus and dialog boxes, expanded right-click functionality, enhanced graphics, and many additional productivity enhancements. Improvements to ANSYS DesignModeler enable engineers to rapidly simplify and create Icepak objects from mechanical CAD data. New variables in ANSYS CFD-Post (thermal chokepoint and thermal cross) allow engineers to identify areas with high thermal resistances and possible regions for a new heat flow path.

Modern and user friendly ANSYS Icepak user interface

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Automotive Modeling

The ANSYS Workbench IC engine analysis system compresses setup time by automating steps in geometry setup, meshing, mesh motion, cold flow setup and post-processing. Improvements that allow the boundary layer to be included during dynamic remeshing enable users to better capture wall effects and improve mesh quality. 

The new ANSYS IC engine analysis system allows you to create CFD models and meshes for IC engines, including engines with ports and moving valves. IC engine-specific tools allow you to set up the complete simulation in an extremely fast and efficient manner.

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Two-Way Coupling

Simultaneously leveraging the capabilities of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational structural dynamics  facilitates high-fidelity analysis of complex multiphysics problems. A well-known example is fluid−structure interaction (FSI). For example, FSI can be the interaction between forces exercised by fluid on a solid structure, leading to deformation of the structure. This deformation can, in turn, influence flow behavior and its impact on the structure. Another example of FSI is the interaction between fluid and structure temperatures: Large differences in temperatures can lead to structural deformation (solid material dilatation or contraction) as well as changes in fluid dynamics (flow dilatation or contraction). ANSYS 14.0 adds two-way FSI capabilities between ANSYS Fluent and ANSYS Mechanical to the multiphysics portfolio for simulating complex phenomena like flutter.

Two-way transient analysis of blood flow through a three-leaf mitral valve. The fluid is non-Newtonian and the material is an anisotropic hyperelastic tissue.

The new system coupling component allows you to easily set up multiphysics simulations. In this example, the system coupling component is used to set up a two-way FSI between ANSYS Fluent and ANSYS Mechanical.

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Expanded Low-Frequency, Structural & Fluids Coupling

A one-way electromagnetic coupling with Fluent allows temperature feedback into electromagnetic designs based on a high level of accuracy provided by  CFD design simulation. This capability enables the user to evaluate a variety of cooling system topologies and impacts to electromagnetic motor/generator behavior; the entire system can be optimized employing ANSYS Workbench.

Two-way electromagnetic coupling with stress analysis addresses effects due to electromagnetic force generation on electromagnetic structures that cause geometries to undergo deformations. The deformed geometries are automatically read by the electromagnetic software platform, which further recalculates electromagnetic field distribution. Thus, electromagnetic characteristics on the deformed structures are evaluated. Based on the coupling designed flow, the stress feedback can be used when thermal−stress simulation is involved.

Heating of a bus bar computed in ANSYS Maxwell (left). Results are exported to ANSYS Fluent to compute the surrounding air temperature (right).

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Fluids Solver & HPC Performance

ANSYS is committed to providing solver and HPC enhancements release by release. ANSYS 14.0 features a comprehensive suite including architecture-aware partitioning, improved scalability for simulations with monitors enabled, and the full release of remote solver manager supporting heterogeneous networks. There is also support of automatic marking of bad-quality cells and invocation of more robust numerics on these cells for improved solver robustness and overall accuracy.

Parallel scalability results of simulation of a structure's aerodynamics, 111 million cells. Scalability performances are excellent in comparison with ideal scalability. Results are shown for up to 1,500 processors; excellent scalability up to 3,000 processors has been demonstrated.

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Turbomachinery Modeling

The transient blade row methods in ANSYS CFX 14.0 are designed to operate on single blade passages and are targeted at three classes of problems. First, an inlet disturbance can be set up that has a different phase angle than the passage. Second, a moving mesh can be implemented in the blade passage to simulate blade flutter, in which the flutter motion is out of phase with the blade passage. Finally, a full stage (rotor stator) can be simulated with two single blade passages, in which the pitch angles of the passages are different from one another. In all cases, significant savings in computational cost is achieved, as these problems would require a full-wheel mesh to solve without these models. Applications in turbomachinery include multi-stage axial, mixed, and centrifugal compressors, turbines, fans, and pumps.

Typical simulations of compressors/turbines systems with different pitch (different number of blades between each stage) require computation of a large sector of the system. If no symmetry can be found, a full 360-degree simulation is required (left). Using the new transient blade row models in ANSYS CFX, such simulation can be accomplished at a fraction of the computational cost, simulating only two to three blade passages (right). This is possible without any loss in accuracy, as shown in the graph comparing the results between a full-scale system and a reduced system in which the transient blade row model is used (results show static pressure history at a point of interest).

Electromagnetics

ANSYS HFSS for ECAD

With the new Ansoft Designer links capability, engineers can create fully solvable ANSYS HFSS models while working in any Cadence layout tool (Allegro, Virtuoso and SiP). Thus, an engineer no longer needs to be expert at using HFSS, since all the modeling steps are automated and can be done while in the Cadence environment.

For non-Cadence users, it is possible to use the ODB format and bring layouts directly into Designer. The user can work in our layout editor and very easily and quickly make changes to the imported layout or automatically assign excitations and solve the imported structure using the HFSS Solver on Demand capability.

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ANSYS SIwave Accuracy & Usability Enhancements

SIwave introduces significant improvements in the calculation of vias and their associated structures. Enhancements include characterization of arbitrary anti-pad shapes and, in certain instances, coupled models for vias that are in close proximity. There is also an improved method to handle unreferenced signal traces during simulation.

SIwave includes the capability to run HSPICE or ANSYS Nexxim transient simulations directly from within SIwave. Once a simulation is finished, the engineer can simulate and plot time-domain waveforms for signal nets directly from within the SIwave tool.

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3-D IC Packages

IC package manufacturers have continued to evolve more complex packaging technologies, such as system-on-chip, stacked die, and multi-chip modules, in an effort to maintain continually increasing chip performance. Three-dimensional packages such as a stacked die, in which multiple dies are stacked vertically in the same package, have unique thermal requirements. Three-dimensional structures don't spread heat evenly throughout the chip, which creates local hot spots. With ANSYS Icepak 14.0, engineers can simulate thermal response of 3-D stacked dies and package-on-package configurations.

Fluid streamlines and temperature contours for a 1U network server, multi-level hex-dominant mesh accurately represents the complex geometry.

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Finite Array Analysis

The analysis of finite-sized antenna arrays is a very important topic in antenna design. Due to the large electrical size of antenna arrays, it has been problematic to simulate with any 3-D simulator. As a result, it is a generally accepted method to solve single antennas and then use a linked boundary approach to create an infinitely large array or utilize an array factor to create a finite array. This method, however, neglects all array edge effects and, therefore, calculates erroneous far-field patterns. The new finite array capability models the finite array exactly; it therefore predicts the proper far fields that include array edge effects.

Far field antenna pattern of 8x8 antenna array solved with new antenna array analysis capability

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Physical Optics Solver

A special class of large electromagnetic structures includes aircraft and ships. Traditionally, these types of models have been too large to be solved by a 3-D full-wave electromagnetic solver. As a result, it is common practice to use physical optics codes. This solution allows for fast and reasonably accurate evaluation of extremely large electromagnetic problems. ANSYS HFSS offers this solver in addition to the standard finite element and integral equation solvers.