Overview to COMSOL Multiphysics

Jukka Tarvo

© 2011 COMSOL. All rights reserved.

• Headquarter in Stockholm.

• 16 offices in Europe, India and USA.

• 250 employees.

• 14 000 licenses och 60 000 users.

World leader in multiphysics simulations

2

Answer four questions: – What is the product line offered by COMSOL

– What is a multiphysics analysis?

– What is the general workflow in COMSOL Multiphysics?

– What are the most notable benefits of COMSOL Multiphysics?

Goals of This Presentation

COMSOL Multiphysics 4.2a Product Line

LiveLink™ for MATLAB®

• LiveLink for MATLAB allows you to integrate COMSOL Multiphysics with MATLAB to extend your modeling with scripting and to build your own applications that incorporate your COMSOL Multiphysics models.

MATLAB is a registered trademark of The MathWorks, Inc.

CAD Import Module and LiveLink™ for CAD 4.2a

LiveLink™ for AutoCAD®, LiveLink™ for Creo™ Parametric, LiveLink™ for Inventor®, LiveLink™ for Pro/ENGINEER®, LiveLink™ for SolidWorks®, LiveLink™ for SpaceClaim®

File Import: Supported Formats

* Needs license for File Import for CATIA V5

Format Extension Version

Parasolid .x_t, .x_b up to V22

SAT (ACIS) .sat, .sab up to R21

STEP .step, .stp AP203, AP214

IGES .igs, .iges up to 5.3

Autodesk Inventor part .ipt 6 – 11, 2008 – 2011

Autodesk Inventor

assembly

.iam 11, 2008 – 2011

Pro/ENGINEER .prt, .asm 16 to Wildfire 5.0

SolidWorks .sldprt, .sldasm 98-2011

CATIA V5* .CATPart, .CATProduct R6 to R20

CAD Repair and Defeaturing Tools

• Parasolid-based CAD Geometry Repair and Defeaturing tools ease meshing of large CAD parts and assemblies

Cap Faces

Virtual Geometry Operations

Material Library

• Data for more than 2500 materials.

• A given material entry store data for up

to 24 different properties by default –

can be extended upon by user.

• Focus on elastic and thermal properties. Each of these material properties is described as a function of some variable, typically temperature T.

• In all, the Material Library contains a total of almost 20,000 property functions (material curves).

• Search Feature: look for materials by name, UNS number, or DIN number.

Anywhere you can type a number …

you can type an equation

• Or an interpolation function …

• And it can depend on anything known in your problem

• Example: Temperature-dependant thermal conductivity of water:

Add Your Own Equations to COMSOL’s

Don’t see what you need?

Add your own equation

• ODE’s

• PDE’s

• Weak form PDE’s

Just type them in

• No Recompiling

• No Programming

Support for High-Performance Computing

Multi-Core Parallel Computing

• No Extra Charge

• Fully Supported on all Licenses

Cluster Parallel Computing

• No Extra Charge

• Requires Floating Network License

• Freq Sweep / Parametric Sweep

• Distributed Single Large Problem

Solvers: Direct / Iterative

Fully Coupled / Segregated

What Is a Multiphysics Analysis?

• Multiphysics is the combination of several physics phenomena when describing a process or system

• The physics can be – Uncoupled

– One-way coupled (a.k.a. weakly coupled)

– Strongly coupled

• COMSOL Multiphysics tackles the situations where those physics can be modeled primarily by – PDEs

– ODEs

– Algebraic equations

• Select your Physics – Tell the software which physical phenomena you want to include in the analysis

• Draw – Use the built-in CAD tools or import from external CAD software

• Specify your Physics – Specify materials, sources and sinks, etc. – Specify boundary conditions

• Mesh – Create structured or unstructured meshes

• Solve – Stationary, transient, eigenfrequency, and parametric analyses – Direct and iterative solvers

• Postprocess the Results – Visualize your results, get values of solution at points of interest – Compute functions of the solution like integrals, fluxes, forces, etc. – Generate reports to share results with colleagues

A Complete FEA Simulation Environment, A Single Workflow

COMSOL Multiphysics Workflow

Mesh

Micromixer www.comsol.com/showroom/gallery/320

Results

Definitions, Materials, and Physics

Study

Geometry

COMSOL Multiphysics User Interface

• Multiphysics – Coupled phenomena (strongly or weakly coupled)

– No limitation on the number of physics involved

– Couplings not limited to pre-implemented cases

• Single physics – A single interface for all physics

• Extreme flexibility with no need for user-subroutines, you can – Create your own multiphysics couplings, with no programming needed

– Type in nonlinear expressions, look-up tables, or function calls

– Manipulate ready-made equations or add your own (PDEs, ODEs, and algebraic equations)

– Parameterize anything (including the geometry)

Most Notable Benefits of COMSOL Multiphysics

The COMSOL benefits – in the words of the users

Energy savings of 50 TWH per year.

“Through techniques such as arc

straightening, acoustic excitation

enables us to greatly enhance the

efficiency of HID lamps, and save energy

on a global scale. A simple estimate

offers potential energy savings of 50

TWH per year.”

Company: OSRAM SYLVANIA

Industry: Lighting

Application: High-Intensity Discharge Lamps

Simulation: Electric currents, acoustics, heat

transfer, fluid flow

http://www.comsol.com/stories/osram_sylvania_discharge_lighting/

Thomas Dreeben and Jo Olsen,

OSRAM SYLVANIA

COMSOL saved several months of development time.

“It’s really about fewer prototypes; fewer

design variations, which translates to

shorter development time; and reduced

R&D and manufacturing costs.

COMSOL saved several months of

development time by avoiding the need

for more experiments.” Waters simulation team (left to right) Bernard Bunner,

Markus Wanninger, and Uwe Neue.

Company: Waters

Industry: Chemical

Application: High Performance Liquid Chromotography

Simulation: Microfluidics and thermal

http://www.comsol.com/stories/waters_corp_hplc_systems/

Cooling of The Largest Magnet in the World at CERN cutting design cycle time by 90%.

“I can now design the cooling

tubes for a superconducting

magnet in a week or so, work

that previously took two to

three months.”

Company: CEA

Industry: Magnetics

Application: Superconducting Magnets

Simulation: Electromagnetics and Cooling

http://www.comsol.com/stories/cern_cooling_largest_magnet/

Dr. Bertrand Baudouy

is a research scientist

at the Accelerator,

Cryogenics and

Magnetism Division of

CEA (the French

Atomic Energy

Commission).

Fuel savings of up to 15%.

GE plans to make use of the energy

generated while dynamic breaking in

their hybrid locomotives to achieve fuel

savings of up to 15%. Michael Vallance

of GE Global Research is simulating the

sodium metal-chloride batteries that will

drive GE’s hybrid locomotives to enable

and even increase these savings.

Company: General Electric Global R&D

Industry: Transportation

Application: Hybrid Locomotives

Simulation: Electrochemistry, ion transport,

heat transfer

http://www.comsol.com/stories/general_electric_modeling_train_batteries/