ANSYS 13.0 Engineering Simulation Suite Announced

By DE Editors

ANSYS, Inc. has launched ANSYS 13.0, the newest release of its engineering simulation technology suite designed to optimize product development processes.

Image courtesy of ANSYS, Inc.

The company says the technology behind ANSYS 13.0 includes hundreds of new features ANSYS 13.0 delivers new benefits in three major areas, according to the company:

• Greater fidelity via new solver methods. As engineering requirements and design complexity increase,  simulation software must produce more accurate results that reflect changing operating conditions over time. ANSYS 13.0 features an electromagnetic transient solver that produces higher-fidelity results in dynamic simulation environments, among other new features.

• Higher productivity built on an adaptive architecture. ANSYS 13.0 includes features designed to minimize the time and effort product development teams invest in simulation. For example, as product designs grow in size and complexity — and consideration of a single physics is no longer enough — ANSYS 13.0 makes it easier for users with different engineering specialties to work collaboratively to exchange data and develop real-world simulations that incorporate multiphysics.

• Performance innovation via software and computational power. ANSYS 13.0 can provide speedup ratios that are greater than previous software releases. Complex multiphysics simulations can be accomplished more quickly and efficiently, speeding up product development and market launch initiatives.

“ANSYS 13.0 builds on the foundation of previous ANSYS releases. It especially addresses user feedback by incorporating valuable capabilities that compress design cycles, optimize product performance across multiple physics, maximize the accuracy of virtual prototypes and automate the simulation process,” says Jim Cashman, president and CEO of ANSYS. “The release will create a significant competitive advantage for users, making it easier and faster to bring innovative new products to market — which has become an imperative in today’s economy.”

The new software release includes solver methods that leverage technology to more quickly deliver accurate answers. For example, in the structural mechanics arena, 3D rezoning can be used for applications that involve large shape deformations. It allows engineers to stop their simulation as their mesh becomes distorted—then remesh the material’s current state and continue the simulation.

The HFSS transient solver for dynamic electromagnetic simulations—such as broadband and radar—incorporates automatic adaptive mesh refinement and an innovative local time-stepping procedure to accurately represent the geometry and fields while optimizing runtime, stability and efficiency. In addition, a new hybrid solver bridges finite element and integral equation methods for high-frequency electromagnetics problems.

For modeling turbulence in fluid environments, an embedded large eddy simulation (LES) solver delivers a faster solution, applying LES to complex areas of interest and faster-solving Reynolds average Navier–Stokes (RANS) to the rest of the solution. ANSYS 13.0 also includes a new fluid dynamics capability for multiple reference frames,  which enables engineers to model multiple moving systems simultaneously.

An integration with Microsoft Excel enables users to interact with spreadsheets that contain analytic representations of models and parameter table definitions. Other enhancements include an innovative cutcell meshing feature that the company says will produce nearly all hexahedral elements on complex 3D geometry automatically, an external data mapper that imports data in the form of a column text file defining a point cloud, and tighter integration among the Maxwell, HFSS and mechanical solvers when performing electromagnetic–thermal–structural simulations.

ANSYS 13.power enhancements include a new application of variational technology that reduces solution time by a factor of five to 10 when applied to harmonic analysis, according to the company. The latest ANSYS release also features greater support for GPU processors, which can be offloaded with complex, time-consuming algorithms to increase both processing speed and accuracy.

“Based on close interactions with our customers, we have designed ANSYS 13.0 to address their most pressing needs for high-quality, fast and powerful simulation results that boost their product development efforts,” Cashman says. “The hundreds of innovative new features in ANSYS 13.0 will make it easier and more cost-effective than ever to apply engineering simulation technology to confidently bring new products to market — a business capability that becomes more critical every day.”

ANSYS 13.0 will be available for customer download later this year.

For more information, visit ANSYS.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.