Following its October user conference, Comsol has updated its Comsol Multiphysics package to 5.2 that, as in the previous version, includes an application builder that allows engineers to build apps based on their Comsol models.
With the Multiphysics software, users can solve for mechanical, electrical, fluid, and chemical problems alone or solve for more than one of those problems together. An engineer could, for example, couple fluid flow with heat-transfer and with other forces that act on the model.
Once solved, they can packaging their models into an accessible interface via an app that allows engineers and simulation specialists to share the models with those in the design, manufacturing, and sales departments. The application builder provides the tools to turn a model into an app that can be run by anyone.
For those who seek a quick and easy way to turn models into accessible apps, version 5.2 includes more than 50 new and updated example apps published to the Application Library that they can use as templates and examples. This version also saves applications, should the server connection be lost before a user completes app creation.
Also new is the capability to save memory and computing power by caching parts of a solution when engineers and specialists run studies for which they need visualization and results for only part of the solution.
For an example of how the software can be used, look to Cypress Semiconductor, of San Jose, Calif., which makes a variety of semiconductors. Engineers there have been using Comsol Multiphysics simulations to improve their designs for a variety of operating conditions and uses, according to Peter Vavaroutsos, a member of the Cypress technical staff.
They’ve created electrostatic models to understand the performance of the tin-doped indium-oxide (ITO) pattern, which is the transparent, conducting coating that contacts the semiconductor to draw current. They’ve also used the software to test design changes such as cover lens thicknesses, layer permitivities, and pattern parameters. The tests allowed them to optimize device performance, Vavaroutsos added.
Cypress engineers also created applications based on their models so that colleagues, such as sales and support engineers, can investigate customized designs requested by customers and to test and verify design ideas, he said.
In an example of another use, engineers at Sogin S.p.A. of Italy simulated how to best safely store nuclear waste in light of the decommissioning of nuclear sites in Italy, according to Gianluca Barbella, a structural engineer at Sogin. The company is a charged with the environmental remediation of Italian nuclear sites.
Nuclear waste can be stored temporarily in steel drums encased in concrete, but environmental factors must be carefully controlled to prevent steel corrosion, Barbella said.
After determining that industrial isothermal dehumidifiers were the best low-cost, small, and mobile solution for maintaining storage conditions, Sogin engineers used Comsol to model air flow in a storage area as well as heat and moisture transfer in the room’s atmosphere.
Based on the results, they were able to determine the optimum layout for the dehumidifying units and reduce the number of units needed as well as the risk of corrosion.
Those are just two of the many uses for the simulation, visualization, and modeling system that speeds the solving of more than one physical effect at a time.
