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Leading 3D Printing Company Appoints New CEO

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Stratasys Ltd., a maker of additive manufacturing and 3D printing technology, has appointed a new chief executive officer.

Yoav Zeif will take the helm in middle February, with current Interim Chief Executive Officer Elchanan Jaglom continuing as chairman.

Based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, Stratasys, Inc. manufactures rapid prototyping machines that produce physical models from computer designs using fused deposition modeling technology.

At Netafim, a micro-irrigation company, Zeif was president of the americas division and head of product offering and chief commercial officer. He was also senior vice president of products and marketing at Makhteshim (now Adama Ltd.), a global crop-protection company. Since 2018, he’s been a partner in the New York office of McKinsey & Company.

“Stratasys has led the expansion of the 3-D printing industry for more than three decades, but the potential impact of this transformative technology across all industries is just beginning,” Jaglom says. “Yoav brings the strong combination of leadership and global operational experience to fuel our next stage of growth. We are confident that as CEO he will advance our offering and further our vision to reshape the world of design, prototyping and manufacturing.”

Last year, Stratasys introduced its F120 printer, an industrial-grade 3D printer.

Although engineers and designers have benefited greatly from the introduction of computer-aided design, they still need a physical copy in order to check the viability of their ideas, Jaglom says. Designers would spend time making models by hand. With the introduction of rapid prototyping machines, such as those made by Stratasys, CAD designs could be turned into a prototype in a matter of hours, available in a variety of materials.

Fused deposition modeling (FDM) technology relies on a high-speed robotic arm and an extruding head, in effect a glue gun, to spray melted thermoplastic filament. Relying on CAD coding, the gun moves over a platform, plotting small dots of plastic to create a model from the bottom up in a thermally controlled modeling chamber.

Although Stratasys continues to make high-end products, the company has enjoyed success with 3-D printers that cost less than $25,000, making the technology available to a much wider range of customers, including schools. Because the machines require no special venting or chemical post-processing they are also suitable for office use, Jaglom says.

With Zeif’s responsibility spanning dozens of global geographies and multiple lines of business, Zeif delivered growth rates significantly higher than the surrounding market, Jaglom says.

Stratasys pioneered and continues to power the additive manufacturing landscape, enabling companies across virtually all industries to build and improve their businesses through 3D printing technology,” Zeif says. “In particular, thanks to its outstanding innovations and application engineering, it is clear that Stratasys is poised not only to reshape product development and prototyping but also to transform supply chains and manufacturing through efficiency and personalization.”

Stratasys was founded by the husband and wife team of Scott Crump and Lisa Crump. In 1988, Crump decided to make a toy frog for his young daughter using a glue gun loaded with a mixture of polyethylene and candle wax. His idea was to create the shape layer by layer. He then thought of a way to automate the process, spent $10,000 on digital-plotting equipment, and devoted weekend hours to the project.

The couple founded the company in 1988 and in 1989 he patented FDM technology.

 

 

Latest Simcenter 3D enhancements deliver better insight into product performance

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Siemens Digital Industries Software announced the latest version of Simcenter 3D software, part of the Simcenter portfolio of simulation and test solutions. Simcenter 3D helps product engineering teams be more productive and produce consistent simulation results with a unified, easy-to-use shared platform covering most simulation disciplines. The latest version delivers the most comprehensive, fully-integrated CAE solution on the market today, to help optimize design and deliver innovations faster and with greater confidence.

The latest release of Simcenter 3D includes many improvements in four key areas:

Multidiscipline Integration: Simcenter 3D offers new simulation methods that increase realism and deliver better insight into product performance. Industrially validated rotor dynamics simulation capabilities have been extended, to include nonlinear connection elements, for example, allowing engineers to minimize rotational unbalance and unnecessary external forces in applications such as aircraft engines, gas turbines, automotive engines, industrial equipment, and even electronics, for example when computer disk drives spin at high rates.

Improved Simcenter 3D rotor dynamics simulation solutions allow you to minimize rotational unbalance and unnecessary external forces in applications such as aircraft engines, gas turbines, automotive engines, industrial equipment, and even electronics.

Faster CAE Processes: New Noise Vibration and Harshness (NVH) composer tool helps engineers quickly create system-level finite-element (FE) models, starting from subassembly models such as an automotive body-in-white, door, suspension, and more. Automating the full-vehicle FE model increases process speed and helps reduce human error.

Ties to the Digital Thread: The seamless integration with data management from Simcenter is extended to enhanced ties to the physical testing group. Deeper test/analysis correlation capabilities from Simcenter 3D, such as new pre-test planning for determining sensor locations, can help determine the best methods to use for physical testing and increase confidence that simulations are accurately predicting real-world results.

Open and Scalable: Simcenter 3D is an open environment where engineers and designers can gain the benefits of faster CAE processes by using Simcenter 3D in connection with other CAE solvers. Added support for cyclic symmetry can help engineers simplify the modeling and simulation process for components when using the Abaqus solver.

Simcenter 3D and the Simcenter portfolio are part of the Xcelerator portfolio, Siemens’ integrated portfolio of software, services and application development platform.

Siemens Digital Industries Software
www.sw.siemens.com

How to combine 1D and 3D thermal simulation for modeling aircraft fuel systems

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Leveraging advanced 3D CAD-embedded CFD capabilities can add robustness and fidelity to a 1D system model.

By Mike Croegaert, Siemens Digital Industries Software

A common issue with modeling complex 1D systems is adding the required detail for complex components that cannot easily be represented through correlations or empirical data. To get the data for these types of components, engineers have two options: physical testing and 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation and analysis. Physical testing can be costly and obtaining the data can be difficult for all possible operating scenarios. Whereas, 3D CFD can be time-consuming and often requires an expert to get reliable results.

Fortunately, we now have the option to use advanced 3D CAD-embedded CFD solutions in conjunction with 1D CFD tools to quickly and accurately characterize complex components without the need for a specialist, while providing an added level of robustness to a complex system model.

The basic fuel system: solving pump limitations
To illustrate the effectiveness of using this combination, a simple passenger aircraft fuel system example will be used. Figure 1 shows a 1D system model drawn on top of the basic fuel system schematic image. It includes source components for the boundary conditions and extra loss components for items such as filters and couplings. The thin link lines represent a direct connection between adjacent components, but they are not pipes themselves. Nodes sit in the middle of the links and serve as convenient points to enter elevation data and interrogate flow results of temperature and total pressure.

Figure 1: Basic aircraft fuel system schematic. The three large blue sections represent the wing and the center fuel tanks, the white boxes represent pumps, and the fuel feed and transfer plumbing is represented in green. The refueling lines are represented in dark blue. Shut-off valves are depicted throughout the model as the circular symbols, indicating normally open or closed.

During normal operation, the fuel is drawn from the tanks with mechanical fuel pumps. However, most mechanical pumps must be fully wetted to function properly. This means sometimes unusable fuel is left in the bottom of the tank. To extract the residual fuel, jet pumps can be added with the suction side connected to the lowest sump point on the inner wing tank. This pump feeds the collector cell by using the motive energy provided by a small amount of high-pressure fuel bled directly from the mechanical fuel pumps. For this example, the jet pumps are placed in the lowest portion of the tank.

In contrast to most other components, this jet pump does not come pre-supplied with performance data. That leaves the designer with two options to define performance. The first method is to enter detailed geometry for the pump and the 1D CFD tool can apply a built-in empirical correlation for jet pump behavior. The second option is a more rigorous databased approach. The pump requires a curve of flow ratio versus head ratio and a curve of motive flow rate versus pressure difference between the motive and suction arms. This data can come from many sources, including the vendor of the pump, physical testing, or 3D CFD characterization and analysis.

3D-1D characterization
Sophisticated 3D CAD-embedded CFD programs have key technologies that facilitate 1D data generation. These tools can be used by the typical engineer as well as seasoned CFD analysts. They apply automated modified wall functions to capture boundary layer effects properly, regardless of the density of the mesh in the boundary layer. They also have an automated solver to determine the flow regime between laminar, turbulent, or transitional without intervention. The most advanced 3D CAD-embedded CFD software has a unique and automated mesher that is geometry aware. If the CAD geometry changes, the mesh changes automatically, updating as the problem solves, intelligently putting more mesh where it is needed. Because these tools are completely CAD-embedded, the designer can run parametric studies, by not only varying flow conditions, but also changing the actual geometry over the course of a study, feeding data back to the 1D CFD software as seamlessly as possible.

Using an intuitive graphical interface, the designer inputs the key variables—choosing the units, the physics to consider in the simulation (including heat transfer, gravity effects and rotation), the fluids to use in the simulation, and lastly, the initial conditions such as temperature, pressure, and initial velocity. The 3D software then calculates a computational domain surrounding the relevant fluid geometry. The design engineer can resize the domain area or even slice the volume in half and do an axisymmetric simulation to save computational resources. The mesh (Figure 2), although highly automated, can be manually driven to add grid cells where needed and manually refined by selecting specific geometry, adding optional control planes, or even disabled bodies into the CAD model to serve as the mesh structure.

Figure 2: 3D CAD-embedded CFD adaptive mesh.

Once the model is prepared, the boundary conditions set, and goals determined, the simulation is ready to run launching the solver. The solver is the only aspect of 3D CAD-embedded CFD that does not operate directly in the CAD environment. Instead, a second window is launched to monitor the progress of the solution. Custom-defined preview plots for parameters such as pressure, velocity, and even the mesh can be created. Goals can also be plotted to have a real-time monitor on current value and their trend toward convergence. Parametric studies can also be performed on multiple machines at once to improve performance.

Once complete, the results are loaded back into the CAD interface, the first example of a result is a cut plot that shows the contours of velocity with overlaid streamlines (Figure 3). The cut plane can be manually adjusted with a live preview. 3D CAD-embedded CFD can also generate three dimensional flow trajectories inside of the fluid region.

Figure 3: Sample results from 3D CAD-embedded CFD.

Typically, for characterizing a component using 1D CFD software, multiple simulations are needed to generate data over a range of flow conditions. Once the study is complete, the results can be saved to a file that acts as a raw record of the flow conditions at each boundary at each experiment point. Each point contains data for flow rate, pressure, temperature, density, viscosity, enthalpy, and heat capacity. From this data, non-dimensional curves can be created so that the software can extrapolate performance of the part over a range of fluids, temperature, and pressures.

After the curves are created, they can be imported into the 1D CFD tool either as an individual data curve or as a complete component. The software will parse the data and automatically determine what type of component to create. Once this step is done, the 1D CFD software adds the component to the catalog and automatically populates it with the data just generated.

Before using the component in the fuel system model, it will first be verified in a unit test. Unlike most components, components sourced from the 3D CAD-embedded CFD program require no further data to use because relevant data such as the curves are pre-applied. All that is required to run a unit test is to add boundary conditions and run an analysis, and the component should perform exactly as the software predicted during the characterization step. After the unit test has verified the component was created correctly, the jet pump can be added to the fuel system model (Figure 4), and the designer can run a series of analyses.

Figure 4: Adding the characterized jet pump to the system model.

In this example, two transient simulation scenarios will be examined. In the first simulation, the jet pump has been included but blocked the motive flow, so the tanks will only feed into the collector cell via gravity. The connection between each section of the tanks is through a series of holes in the ribs that separate each compartment. These holes span almost the entire height of the tank, but the bottom 2-in. of the tank is blocked by structure.

As shown in Figure 5a with the blue line, the outer tank is draining briefly into the inner tank marked in red. The outer tank stops flowing as the level of fuel drops below the holes in the rib. Rendering the remaining 2-in. of fuel in that tank unusable. The inner tank in red, and the collector cell in green both drain together. The collector cell is drained via the mechanical fuel pumps, and the inner tank drains via gravity into the cell until it too reaches about 2 in. of height and can no longer drain. The tank is exhausted of all usable fuel in about 125 seconds.

Figure 5a: Scenario 1 – Jet pump inactive.
Figure 5b: Scenario 2 – Jet pump active.

The second case shown in Figure5b has the jet pump enabled. Here, the jet pump is moving fuel from the inner tank to the collector cell at a rate of about 10 gal per minute. In this case, the inner tank drains much faster, but that fuel is being transferred to the collector cell to feed the pumps. Because the suction inlet to the jet pump can be placed at the lowest point in the tank, it can drain almost all of the fuel out of it before it stops providing flow. At this point, the fuel level in the collector cell starts to drop quickly until it is completely exhausted. In this case, because more fuel is available, the tank does not drain for 320 seconds, a significant improvement.

Leveraging advanced 3D CAD-embedded CFD capabilities can add robustness and fidelity to a 1D system model. The 3D CFD solution does this by characterizing complex components within the CAD environment and then automatically importing the results into the 1D model. Here, a common issue with 1D system models of aircraft fuel systems was examined: how to add the required detail to the model for complex components that cannot easily be represented through correlations or empirical data. Siemens 3D CFD software, Simcenter FLOEFD, runs inside of several CAD packages including Siemens NX and Solid Edge, CATIA V5, PTC Creo, and a standalone version. This example also uses Siemens Flomaster 1D CFD software for the system simulation.

Until recently, designers had to choose between costly physical testing and time-consuming 3D CFD that usually requires an expert to obtain reliable results. This approach that combines 3D CAD-embedded CFD and 1D CFD can be used to quickly and accurately characterize complex components without the need for a CFD analyst and provide an added level of robustness to complex models such as the aircraft fuel system.

Siemens Digital Industries Software
www.sw.siemens.com

IronCAD launches Design Collaboration Suite 2020

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IronCAD, the 3D CAD platform of choice among metal fabricators and custom machinery manufacturers, unveiled IRONCAD 2020 and it’s got more than just perfect vision for design productivity. Designed to increase productivity for CAD software users to get their products to market faster, this release focuses on performance, commonly asked usability items, and continued improvements on key functionality that sets IronCAD apart in the design process.

Every year, IronCAD users submit feedback with enhancement requests that matter the most for increasing the design productivity or improving the 3D to production drawing process. The IRONCAD 2020 release delivers improved large assembly performance, streamlined workflows, and new capabilities that help users design, present, and communicate their ideas faster and easier. This year’s release, the main focus was on improving the ICD (IronCAD Drawing Environment) to increase productivity. With this in mind, our goal was to improve the 3D to 2D detailing process to reduce the design to manufacturing timing with better performance, improved commands, better accessibility to common commands, faster drawing creation with our automated bulk view creation tool that enable users to go from concept to manufactured products faster.

Beyond the IronCAD Drawing Environment, IronCAD delivered performance improvements for working with large assemblies. This significant development was implemented to increase the system’s performance and to take advantage of newer hardware with multiple cores. In addition, many functional items were added to streamline the interaction with large assemblies, such as additional improvements in our Shrink Wrap commands for condensing large assemblies into workable reference geometry. With IronCAD 2020, noticeable improvements can be found importing, opening, saving, and working daily with large assembly files.

Examples amongst the new improvements in IRONCAD 2020 are:

· Large Assembly Performance – Open/Save/Import speed is improved for files that contain large structures that may have large assembly trees containing many nodes under individual assembly levels. Changes implemented have significant improvements in speed in all areas while working on large assemblies that range from 30-50% improvement.

· Real-time Interchanging of Full and Lightweight Models – Using IronCAD’s Shrink Wrap capabilities to create lightweight versions of parts and assemblies, you can dynamically interchange the fully detailed model and the lightweight model within an assembly file. This capability significantly improves the interaction with large assemblies not only on load/save but while design within the context of the full assembly.

· Many Technical Drawing/Detailing Improvements – IronCAD 2020 focused heavily on improving the speed from taking 3D Designs into production drawings ready for manufacturing. Speed improvements in creating and editing dimensions with quick access to dimension properties, Automatic Break Line support, Overall View Dimensions, 2D Catalogs support for reusable Annotations, and Spell Checker are among some of the many improvements added to improve the process.

· Commonly Requested Functionality – Focus was given to provide functionality commonly requested by our industry users. Command Search, Dockable Catalogs, 4K Support, Feature Fill Pattern, Sheet Metal Conversion and Layflat Design feature are among items added to enhance the design experience with IronCAD.

“Expanding on our recent 20th year release capabilities, IronCAD 2020 gains a significant leap in the ability to work and manage large assembly files commonly used among our custom machinery manufacturers” stated Cary O’Connor, V.P. of Marketing of IronCAD. “Users will feel improvements to the performance while working in 3D all the way through to the final production drawing output with the many improvements developed in the IronCAD Drawing Environment to speed up and aid the detailing process” he continued.

IronCAD
www.ironcad.com

COMSOL launches Version 5.5 of COMSOL Multiphysics

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COMSOL, a leading provider of software solutions for multiphysics modeling, simulation, and application design and deployment, announces the latest version of its COMSOL Multiphysics software. In version 5.5, the Design Module provides an entirely new sketching tool for easier creation and more versatile parametric control of geometry models. New and updated solvers speed up a range of simulations. Two new add-on products, the Porous Media Flow Module and the Metal Processing Module, further expand the product suite’s multiphysics modeling power.

Parametric sketching with dimensions
The Design Module provides a new sketching tool that makes it easy to assign dimensions and constraints to planar drawings for 2D models and 3D work planes. “We have carefully integrated the new dimensions and constraints tool in the Model Builder so that it becomes a natural part of the COMSOL Multiphysics workflow,” said Daniel Bertilsson, technology manager for mathematics and computer science at COMSOL. “The new tools for dimensions and constraints can be used together with model parameters in COMSOL Multiphysics to drive the simulation, whether for a single run, parametric sweep, or parametric optimization.”

Parametric optimization of fluid flow in a microvalve using the new sketching tool with dimensions and constraints capabilities available in the Design Module.

New solver technology for Acoustics Simulations
Ultrasound technology is becoming increasingly important in a range of applications spanning from process engineering and nondestructive testing to consumer electronics. New functionality based on the time-explicit discontinuous Galerkin method enables efficient multicore computations of ultrasound propagation in solids and fluids, including realistic materials featuring damping and anisotropy. The method also has low-frequency applications, such as in seismology. The included multiphysics capabilities can seamlessly combine linear elastic wave propagation in a solid and its transition to a fluid as an acoustic pressure wave, and back again. The new elastic wave functionality is available for users of the Structural Mechanics Module, MEMS Module, and Acoustics Module. The fluid-structure acoustics coupling is available in the Acoustics Module.

 

Sound pressure field in a car interior solved with the finite element method at 7 kHz using a specialized solver for wave propagation analysis.

For frequency-domain simulations, a specialized solver for wave propagation analysis makes it possible to handle higher frequencies (shorter wavelengths) using the finite element method. The new solver can be used to analyze enclosed structures such as that of a car cabin interior as well as other acoustics simulations.

Introducing the Metal Processing Module
The new Metal Processing Module makes metal phase transformation analysis accessible within the COMSOL Multiphysics environment for applications within welding, heat treatment, and metal additive manufacturing. “The Metal Processing Module makes it possible to predict deformations, stresses, and strains resulting from wanted or unwanted heat-driven phase changes in metals,” said Mats Danielsson, technical product manager at COMSOL. “The module can be combined with any of the other COMSOL products for virtually any kind of multiphysics analysis that includes metal phase change. We envision users combining this with, for example, the Heat Transfer Module for the influence of heat radiation, the Ac/dc Module for induction hardening, and the Nonlinear Structural Materials Module for highly predictive analysis of material behavior.”

 

Residual stresses in a spur gear after quenching, calculated using the Metal Processing Module.

Introducing the Porous Media Flow Module

The Porous Media Flow Module gives users within, for example, food, pharmaceutical, and biomedical industries a wide range of transport analysis capabilities for porous media. The new add-on product includes functionality for single- and multiphase flow in porous media, drying, and transport in fractures. The flow models cover linear and nonlinear flow in saturated and variably saturated media with special options for slow and fast porous media flows. The multiphysics simulation capabilities are extensive, with functionality that includes options for calculating effective thermal properties for multicomponent systems; poroelasticity; and transport of chemical species in solid, liquid, and gas phases.

Simulation of a packed bed latent heat storage tank, using the Porous Media Flow Module.

Simplified Shape and Topology Optimization with the Optimization Module
Users working with mechanical, acoustics, electromagnetics, heat, fluid, and chemical analysis have been able to perform shape and topology optimization in COMSOL Multiphysics for many years. The Optimization Module now offers simplified setup of shape optimization with new built-in features such as moving boundaries parameterized by polynomials and built-in support for shell thickness optimization. A new smoothing operation for topology optimization ensures higher-quality geometry outputs that can be used for additional analysis and additive manufacturing. COMSOL Multiphysics now has general support for import and export of the additive manufacturing formats PLY and 3MF, in addition to the STL format that is already available.

Shape optimization of a sheet metal bracket using the Optimization Module. The structure is subjected to a bending load resulting in ridges in the optimal design.

Nonlinear Shell Analysis, Pipe Mechanics, and Random Vibration Analysis
A wide range of nonlinear analysis options are now available for shells and composite shells, including plasticity, creep, viscoplasticity, viscoelasticity, hyperelasticity, and mechanical contact. The mechanical contact modeling functionality has been extended to support any combination of solids and shells, including solid-shell, solid-composite shell, and membrane-shell. Depending on the type of analysis, these improvements will be available to users of the Structural Mechanics Module, Nonlinear Structural Materials Module, and Composite Materials Module.

For users of the Structural Mechanics Module, a new user interface for pipe mechanics provides functionality to perform stress analysis of pipe systems. The new functionality can handle a variety of pipe cross sections and can include effects from external loads, internal pressure, axial drag forces, and temperature gradients through the pipe wall.

Users of the Structural Mechanics Module can now perform random vibration analysis to study the response to loads that are represented by their power spectral density (PSD).

This allows users to include loads that are random in nature, such as turbulent wind gusts or road-induced vibrations on a vehicle. The loads can be fully correlated, uncorrelated, or have a specific user-given correlation.

The Multibody Dynamics Module provides new functionality for analyzing rigid and elastic chain drives with automatic generation of the large number of links and joints needed for modeling chain drives.

 

Elastic chain drive analysis in the Multibody Dynamics Module. Colors and arrows show the velocity and velocity direction, respectively, in the chain and sprockets.

Compressible Euler Flow and Nonisothermal Large Eddy Simulations
Users of the CFD Module will get new interfaces for compressible Euler flow and nonisothermal large eddy simulations (LES). In addition, the flow interfaces for rotating machinery now support the level set and phase field methods as well as Euler–Euler and bubbly flow. The Heat Transfer Module comes with a new interface for lumped thermal systems, an equivalent circuit modeling approach for heat transfer simulations. Radiation in semitransparent (participating) media now supports multiple spectral bands, and a new open boundary formulation for convective flow reduces solution time by 30%.

Multiscale Wave and Ray Optics, Piezoelectric Shells, and PCB Ports
The Ray Optics Module can now be combined with the RF Module or Wave Optics Module for simultaneous full-wave and ray tracing simulations. This enables multiscale modeling, such as analyzing a waveguide beaming into a large room, where using a full-wave simulation would be computationally prohibitive. Combining the AC/DC Module and the Composite Materials Module, users can now analyze layered materials with both dielectric and piezoelectric layers in thin structures. In the RF Module, a set of new ports for vias and transmission lines makes setup much quicker and gives more control to the user for modeling of printed circuit boards.

Efficient Distribution of Standalone Applications
COMSOL Compiler enables you to create standalone applications based on COMSOL Multiphysics models with specialized user interfaces that have been built with the Application Builder. Compiled applications require only COMSOL Runtime — no COMSOL Multiphysics or COMSOL Server license is required. “Since the release of COMSOL Compiler last fall, we have seen great response from our Application Builder users with this new possibility of distributing their applications in standalone form,” said Daniel Ericsson, application product manager at COMSOL. The latest version of COMSOL Compiler has a new compile option for generating minimum-sized files for easier distribution. When the user launches an application for the first time, where the new compile option has been used, COMSOL Runtime is downloaded and installed, if needed, from COMSOL’s website. Only one instance of COMSOL Runtime is needed for applications using the same COMSOL version. COMSOL Runtime has a size of about 350 MB and an application file can be as small as a few MB.

The COMSOL Runtime installer for standalone applications created with the Application Builder and compiled with COMSOL Compiler.

Highlights in Version 5.5:

–New sketching tool with dimensions and constraints

–Fast linear elastic wave simulations

–New Metal Processing Module for welding, heat treatment, and metal additive manufacturing

–New Porous Media Flow Module for food, pharmaceutical, and biomedical industries

–Improved tools for shape and topology optimization for mechanical, acoustics, electromagnetics, heat, fluid, and chemical analysis

–Import and export of the 3D printing and additive manufacturing formats PLY and 3MF

–Editing tools for repair of STL, PLY, and 3MF files

–Structural analysis of nonlinear shells, pipe mechanics, random vibration, and chain drives

–Compressible Euler flow and nonisothermal large eddy simulation (LES)

–Rotating machinery with level set, phase field, Euler–Euler, and bubbly flow

–Lumped thermal system equivalent circuits

–Multiple spectral bands for radiation in participating media

–More efficient open boundary condition for convective heat transfer

–Use of thermodynamic database properties in any simulation type

–Combined full wave and ray optics simulations

–Piezoelectric and dielectric shells

–New PCB ports for vias and transmission lines

–Link images to Microsoft PowerPoint presentations

–Create your own add-ins for customizing the Model Builder workflow

–Minimal file size standalone applications with COMSOL Compiler

Availability
COMSOL Multiphysics, COMSOL Server, and COMSOL Compiler software products are supported on the following operating systems: Windows, Linux, and macOS. The Application Builder tool is supported in the Windows operating system.

To browse version 5.5 release highlights, visit: www.comsol.com/release/5.5

To download the latest version, visit: www.comsol.com/product-download

COMSOL

Developing a zero-emission, all-electric regional commuter aircraft

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Dassault Systèmes announced that the electric air mobility pioneer, Eviation Aircraft, used the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud to develop the first prototype of its zero-emission, all-electric regional commuter aircraft – Alice – in two years.

In the race to create and commercialize new categories of sustainable air mobility systems, Eviation Aircraft accelerated the prototype’s development by deploying the “Reinvent the Sky” industry solution experience based on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. This scalable cloud solution supported the company’s holistic approach to 3D, composite design and flow simulation with improved collaboration while securing data in a single, standards-based environment.

“The electrification of aircraft isn’t a question of if, but when. As we aim to make clean regional air travel accessible for all, we needed to be able to make a product that people trust, sit in and fly, and do it quickly,” said Omer Bar-Yohay, CEO, Eviation Aircraft. “The right way to go about it was to use tools that we would want to use in the long run, and to work in the cloud to ensure fast, secure access and global collaboration. When we selected the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, we were an early-stage startup with limited resources and time. We’ve developed our commercial-stage prototype faster than we imagined, and have already signed our first customer in the U.S.”

Eviation Aircraft realized that transforming a prototype into a product that can be manufactured by the hundreds each year would require empowering its engineers with the long-term knowledge and know-how to build it to maturity for the next generation.

Once commercialized, Alice will be the world’s first all-electric regional commuter aircraft, capable of carrying nine passengers and two crew on a single charge for 650 miles at 10,000 feet.

Dassault Systèmes
www.3ds.com

Siemens expands SaaS offerings to Simcenter Amesim and Simcenter 3D

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Siemens Digital Industries Software announces the availability of Simcenter 3D software and Simcenter Amesim software delivered as a service. Through a strategic collaboration between Siemens and Rescale, a leader in enterprise big computing, engineers can gain immediate, cost-effective software-as-a-service (SaaS) access to simulation tools. Particularly useful for small to medium-sized businesses, the SaaS framework offers tiered product bundles in which customers can select the right level of capabilities they need, as well as monthly subscription-based billing and licensing and a pay-per-use computing infrastructure.

Large enterprises can also benefit from the availability of Simcenter on the Rescale cloud platform with multiple flexible licensing options available to solve specific business challenges. SaaS licensing can be used to add short-term software licenses in times of peak usage or bring your own licensing (BYOL) can be used to let Simcenter customers leverage their existing investments when high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities are needed.

Siemens is committed to using the cloud to deliver its software and make high quality simulation capabilities available to all businesses. In addition to Simcenter Amesim and Simcenter 3D, Simcenter Nastran and Simcenter STAR-CCM+ can be accessed through the cloud so that companies of all sizes can create and simulate digital twins of their products, on-demand on an established HPC platform.

Siemens Digital Industries Software
www.dex.siemens.com/plm/simcenter-on-the-cloud

RBF Morph speeds real-time design-data feedback

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As engineers in industry and research look to develop Digital Twins of their physical products—with the longer-term goal of integration with the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)—the pivotal importance of up-front, accurate, real-time modeling and simulation to optimize both manufacturing and product performance is clear.

Enabling the development of this function is RBF Morph, a technology embedded within ANSYS’ newly released R3 version of its advanced engineering software suite, in particular the ANSYS Twin Builder systems-design tool. Also available as a standalone product, RBF Morph provides advanced mesh-morphing capabilities that enable rapid prediction of the outcomes of design changes. Based on radial basis functions (RBF) the software is used to drive mesh-smoothing (morphing) from source points and their displacements.

Mesh morphing is needed for reduced-order modeling (ROM), which allows physics-based analysis of product performance and durability to be carried out more accurately and in much less time than traditional methods. “Developing ROM within ANSYS has been a priority for us,” says Michel Rochette, Director of Research at ANSYS. “Merging physics-based understanding with manufacturing analytics delivers the insights that unlock the value of the Digital Twin. The mathematical techniques behind ROM require that everything has the same mesh topology for all the geometrical parameters in your model—and RBF Morph provides that.”

RBF Morph has been offered within ANSYS Mechanical and ANSYS Fluent CFD capabilities for several years. The new coupling with Twin Builder underscores the value of the technology to Digital-Twin functionality, which optimizes control of a company’s product and/or equipment assets. “If you want to include real-time 3D simulation in your Digital-Twin approach it is mandatory to have the approximation that a reduced-order model can provide,” says Rochette. “The future of the IIoT is being built on that, thanks to ROM and RBF Morph.”

Industrial application with RBF Morph – RINA

RINA, a leading global provider of engineering consulting for industrial services and advanced technology, has an ongoing partnership with RBF Morph to offer Digital-Twin-based workflows for product development. (RINA, ANSYS, RBF Morph and others are currently partnering in a 4-million Euros project on medical digital twins: meditate-project.eu).

RINA uses RBF Morph design technology to explore a turbine blade’s design space quickly and determine the effects of design changes.

For a turbine-blade project, RINA was looking for a methodology to quickly predict how any redesigns would affect the blade’s structural response and aerodynamics. The goal was to modify the curved fillet region at the root of the blade to reduce the stress concentration and increase service life by limiting fatigue.

Rather than create a new geometry, mesh and simulation for each design iteration, RINA used RBF Morph, in conjunction with ANSYS Mechanical, to explore the blade’s design space efficiently and determine the effects of design changes.

Meshing the original blade design and using finite element analysis (FEA), the engineers calculated a maximum principal stress of about 195 MPa; the stress peak occurred close to the point where the cross section of the blade had an important geometrical variation. The engineers were looking to smooth out the force and reduce peak stress by adopting a larger radius at the root of the fillet.

The RBF Morph process RINA used involved varying the positions of two curves that controlled the shape of the fillet. First the mesh’s nodes were extracted to follow the new shape of the fillet; the engineers specified how the nodes could move as the mesh’s volume morphed along the new curves. They were also able to define nodes that stayed fixed during the morph. With the right inputs, the engineers were able to control the morphing process so the volume and surfaces deformed smoothly and properly. Ultimately 125,000 nodes were updated in just 15 seconds to accommodate the deformation without excessively degrading the quality of the mesh.

SPINNER uses RBF Morph technology to asses the geometry of different sizes of vertebral screws.

With their RBF Morph procedure established, RINA’s engineers then carried out a two-parameter optimization of the fillet control points using response surface methods, design of experiments (DoE) and parallel plots. These tools allowed the engineers to identify the optimal blade design where the stress was spread out and had a smaller peak. The result: a substantial stress reduction of 22.5 percent in the optimal blade design.

“We found that using RBF Morph was intuitive, effective, and fast,” says Emiliano Costa, Senior Engineering Specialist for Industrial Design & CAE at RINA. “We now include RBF Morph in our design processes to help us more quickly develop better solutions for our customers.”

“This RBF Morph/ROM shape-parametrization methodology used by RINA to optimize turbine blade designs enables the ‘squeezing’ of high-fidelity CAE simulations into real-time Digital Twins,” says RBF Morph founder and CTO Marco Evangelos Biancolini. “When integrated via the IIoT, the technology is ultimately intended to support field-equipment maintenance—tracking performance and predicting or detecting worn parts in need of repair or redesign.”

Medical application with RBF Morph – SPINNER

SPINNER is a European Community-funded doctoral training program aimed at early-stage bioengineering researchers, with the goal of training them to design the next generation of repair materials and techniques for spine surgery. A recent project focused on the planning of surgeries to treat vertebral fractures, which are often repaired by means of rods and screws implanted directly into a patient’s individual vertebral bodies. SPINNER Ph.D. candidate Marco Sensale carried out a sensitivity analysis supported by RBF Morph to estimate the influence of the size of the screw on the amount of stress in the screw and strain in the vertebra.

“The two parameters that determine the size of commercial medical screws are the length and the diameter, which have to be chosen during the planning for each individual patient,” Sensale says. “This choice is often based on anatomic measures as well as the experience of the surgeon. By modeling Digital Twins of individual vertebras and screws that have different geometries we can rapidly perform simulations to identify which relationships between different parameters will lead to surgical success for a particular patient.”

Sensale used RBF technology to update only the nodal positions of his models, instead of remeshing the geometry every time as he changed the length of the screw. This provided results more quickly with each iteration. He also modelled an offset to the lateral surface of the screw in a similar fashion in order to explore the stress resulting from different screw diameters (Image B2). Preliminary results of this ongoing study show the least amount of overall stress (MPa) within those screws that are slightly longer and wider in diameter.

A second arm of the research examined peak minimum principal strain in the vertebra itself (Image B3) after implantation of a screw. Preliminary results indicate the least percentage of strain in the bone when a slightly wider, longer screw is used.

With research ongoing, Sensale says, “We are working to provide quantitative information to support surgeons in their decision-making and RBF Morph tool is providing us with a valuable tool for this project.” Adds RBF’s Biancolini, “Thanks to medical Digital Twins like those being created for this SPINNER project, surgeons will be able to plan for, practice, and achieve the best outcomes for each patient they treat.”

Availability for both commercial and student applications

Biancolini, Associate Professor of Machine Design at the University of Rome, appreciates the broad reach of applications for which his software is being used. “Digital Twins are the future of enterprises of all sizes,” he says. “Now that large solver capacity and high-performance computing are available and considered standard resources for product design, a wide range of industry users can take advantage of our technology to help them optimize their designs at lightening speeds.”

RBF Morph technology is offered to ANSYS users in two products: an ACT Extension for ANSYS Mechanical and an add-on for ANSYS Fluent. The ACT Extension is available on the ANSYS App Store both as a commercial version and both as a no-cost version as a companion to the Free Academic software of ANSYS.

RBF Morph
Rbf-morph.com

PTC to acquire Onshape

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PTC announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Onshape, creators of Software as a Service (SaaS) product development platform that unites computer aided design (CAD) with data management and collaboration tools, for approximately $470 million, net of cash acquired.
The acquisition is expected to accelerate PTC’s ability to attract new customers with a SaaS-based product offering and position the company to capitalize on the inevitable industry transition to SaaS. Pending regulatory approval and satisfaction of other closing conditions, the transaction is expected to be completed in November 2019.

Located in Cambridge, MA, Onshape was founded in 2012 by CAD pioneers and tech legends, including Jon Hirschtick, John McEleney, and Dave Corcoran, inventors and former executives of SolidWorks. Onshape has secured more than $150 million in funding from leading venture capital firms and has more than 5,000 subscribers around the world. The company’s software offering is delivered in a SaaS model, making it accessible from any connected location or device, eliminating the need for costly hardware and administrative staff to maintain. Distributed and mobile teams of designers, engineers, and others can benefit from the product’s cloud nature, enabling them to improve collaboration and to dramatically reduce the time needed to bring new products to market – while simultaneously staying current with the latest software.

This acquisition is the logical next step in PTC’s overall evolution to a recurring revenue business model, the first step of which was the company’s transition to subscription licensing, completed in January 2019. The SaaS model, while nascent in the CAD and PLM market, is rapidly becoming industry best practice across most other software domains.

Onshape will operate as a business unit within PTC, with current management reporting directly to PTC President and CEO Jim Heppelmann.

Barclays acted as exclusive financial advisor to PTC on the transaction.

PTC
www.ptc.com

Quality Information Framework (QIF) for translation and validation to/from CAD

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Elysium, a world leader in 3D-geometry handling, interoperability, data translation and quality-checking software, will release a solution for multi-CAD to/from QIF for translation and validation between users. The added capability will be part of the new release of ASFALIS software planned for early 2020.

A Quality Information Framework (QIF) is an XML architecture that defines, organizes, and associates quality information needed in manufacturing systems. With the rising demand for digital data utilization throughout the entire supply chain, and specifically within the measurement-and-inspection stage, QIF was created by DMSC, accredited by ANSI, to address pressing industry requirements.

The new solution will semantically connect the design, manufacturing and inspection phases and streamline design to inspection and quality management workflow. With this capability, users will be able to translate CAD geometry and Product Manufacturing Information (PMI) to QIF and import high-quality data to QIF-supported metrology software and hardware.

In addition, Elysium will offer advanced solutions such as:

* Validation between native CAD data and translated QIF data

* Validation between original QIF data and QIF data after editing

* Translation from edited QIF to CAD

“We’re providing a sensible solution for streamlining the manufacturing process by supporting the QIF lead taken by DMSC, where Elysium has a strong presence,” said Atsuto Soma, CTO at Elysium. “With translation tools between multi-CAD and QIF not yet widely developed in industry, manufacturers throughout the world have high expectations for a forthcoming solution. Elysium has advanced its geometry handling and CAD translation technologies significantly over the years—while continually strengthening genuine partnerships with major CAD vendors. Elysium hopes to better enable manufacturers in their Model-Based Definition and Enterprise (MBD/E) initiatives through its on-going support of QIF translation and validation.”

Elysium
www.elysium-global.com/en/