One significant improvement to the simulation platform is the ability to model multiple mixing fluids. This is often important for the food processing and oil and gas industries. Engineers are able to assess how two fluids will mix as they use tools like diffusers to optimize its design and operation.

Additionally, the marine industry might be interested in SimScale’s local time-stepping function. This tool will compute the steady states of multiphase flows. This can be used to simulate the free surface flow around a ship’s hull as it approaches steady state.

The advancements to SimScale are not limited to CFD. FEA improvements include advanced analysis previously tested in a soft launch. These new tools include:

• Alternate boundary conditions
  
  • Rotation
  • Remote force
  • Follower pressure
• Dynamic contact models
  
  • Augmented Lagrange
  • Penalty method
• Alternate material types
  
  • Hyperelastic
  • Elastic
  • Plastic

How This Affects the Simulation Industry

To many CAE users, the announcements made by SimScale might seem to be limited compared to its bigger simulation software cousins. Many of the features branded as new to SimScale have been commonplace in ANSYS, Dassault Systèmes and COMSOL products,

What makes this important to the industry is the availability of SimScale. As reported in a previous article, SimScale offers their technology on-cloud at the fraction of the price of other simulation software. Therefore, these CAE tools and advanced simulation capabilities are now attainable to start-up companies and individual engineers interested in consulting.

As SimScale and similar tools continue to play catch-up, individual engineers will be able to do more and more of the simulations typically restricted to internal R&D divisions and large consultancies that can afford more expensive CAE tools. The big players in simulation will be forced to come up with bigger and better functionalities to ensure their products are worth the additional cost to their customers.