Canonsburg, Pennsylvania —To accurately simulate "real world" conditions, an application must be able to characterize uncertainty and variations for nonlinear analysis; it must be able to perform multi-physical simulations; and it must offer simulation exceeding several million degrees of freedom. The ANSYS®5.7 family of products, first shipped in January this year, addresses each of these concerns, bringing simulation that much closer to reality.
Nonlinear analysis, for example, helps design engineers determine precisely how product designs will perform during the manufacturing and assembly processes, as well as the subsequent product life cycle. By examining such issues as viscoplasticity, hyperelasticity, and thermal contact—before building physical prototypes—ANSYS 5.7 can reduce equipment downtime for significant savings of time and money.
ANSYS 5.7's Probabilistic Design System™(PDS) assesses the effect of uncertainty on the performance parameters of interest. Traditionally in a finite element analysis, all input parameters such as material properties, geometric extensions of a component, external loads, and boundary conditions are regarded as deterministic and fixed values. In reality, however, almost all of these input parameters are subject to scatter, and show variations from one component to another. PDS allows the user to take all input variations into account and quantify their combined effect on the analysis results.
Real world conditions are also multi-physical. ANSYS/Multiphysics™, part of the 5.7 family, can couple the effects of structural, thermal, fluid-flow, dynamics, and electromagnetics to create more realistic simulation. "Most simulation users today focus on one specific discipline at a time," notes Michael Wheeler, vice president, ANSYS Inc. "When accuracy demands that more than one of these effects be combined within a common simulation environment, ANSYS/Multiphysics is a logical tool of choice."
Finally, large model simulation capable of ten million degrees of freedom also helps ANSYS 5.7 better approximate reality. With the integration of 3D solid modelers into the design process, and the desire to model assemblies instead of individual parts, modern analyses are creating very large finite element models.
ANSYS 5.7 addresses large models by introducing Parallel Performance for ANSYS. The new module contains an Algebraic Multigrid (AMG) Solver, as well as a Distributed Domain Solver (DDS). The former, which is a shared memory solver, scales well on up to eight processors and works well on ill-conditioned models. DDS, which is both a distributed and shared memory solver, divides a model into multiple domains. Here, different processors solve contiguous groupings of finite elements drawn from the complete model.
"Parallel Performance for ANSYS," says Vice President Paul Bemis, "provides engineers with the option of using either multiprocessing servers or a cluster of workstations networked together." He predicts that as multiprocessing becomes more prevalent, users will find increasing need for Parallel Performance for ANSYS with its AMG and DDS solvers.
Supported on all major UNIX and Microsoft OS platforms, the ANSYS 5.7 family of products offers full CAD interoperability, including UG, Catia, Pro/E, CADDS, Autodesk, and Solidworks.
Tweet This
3 
