The range of companies that use—or may benefit from–simulation software, such as ANSYS, which the company updated to version 17 earlier this month, is large. The next industrial revolution has been called Industry 4.0, according to Jim Cashman, ANSYS chief executive officer.
The moniker encompasses technologies like the Internet of Things as well as the Industrial Internet of Things, that call upon products, sensors, and monitors designed with the help of simulation. Products created through additive manufacturing are also simulated before they’re made, he said.
But traditional manufacturers benefit from simulation as well. General Motors, for example, has called upon ANSYS to compute the torque profile of the motor, how torque ramps up over time in motor mode, and the electrical resistance in stopping the vehicle in regenerative brake mode.
In many cases, simulation acts as a kind of virtual prototyping method. Engineers can simulate and analyze their designs to see how a number of different physical phenomena would act upon them in the real world. If the virtual tests don’t meet requirements, engineers redesign and test again.
The software-makers upgrade to version 17 combines modeling and simulation capabilities for an integrated product development platform driven by behavior modeling and simulation, said Peter Bilello, president of CIMdata, a product lifecycle management consulting firm.
“ANSYS’ product portfolio is well positioned to meet the multi-domain requirements for developing complex cyber-physical systems with ever increasing levels of software and electronics content,” Bilello said.
For instance, using a single simulation platform, engineers can simulate physical models and can also embed systems design and software models, if desired. This enables virtual systems simulation, testing and prototyping, Cashman said.
Also in this release, the company introduces support for the industry-standard system modeling language Modelica, for access to hundreds of mechanical and fluid component and to the language’s model library for power electronics. Also, three-dimensional results can now be incorporated into system-level models.
The upgrade also expands turbomachinery simulation capabilities to encompass a wider array of operating conditions. Engineers can solve considerably more transient blade row configurations by calculating as few as one blade per row instead of the full wheel to speed time to solution by over ten times, Cashman. This reduces the required computing resources as well.
ANSYS performance is also improved for high-performance computing (HPC), as upgrades to the ANSYS 17.0 electromagnetics suite deliver computational speed for full transient electromagnetic field simulation for electric motor design. Simulations of transient behaviors that previously required weeks of computational time can now be completed in hours during early design stages, Cashman said.
“ANSYS 17.0 allows us to fully utilize our HPC hardware,” said Briam Cavalca Bork, product engineer at WEG Electric Corp., which makes electric motors. “Simulation time has improved by a factor of 20 times, but more importantly we have gained more in-depth and timely design insight that will allow us to deliver industry leading, innovative machine designs,” he said.
“The new ANSYS technology delivers the capability to do more complex analyses on a greater variety of scenarios,” he added.
The software-maker’s fluid and structural analysis simulation capabilities have also benefited from the HPC improvements, Cashman said.
