COMSOL Sees 10x Speed Improvements and Releases Rotordynamics Module

Shawn Wasserman posted 2016-10-12

COMSOL 5.2a sees 10x speed improvements for various functions like the meshing of large modules. This image includes a tetrahedral and swept mesh of a gas turbine. (Image courtesy of COMSOL.)

COMSOL has just announced the 5.2a release of its computer-aided engineering (CAE) platform at its user conference in Boston. The release focuses on performance improvements and a new simulation Rotordynamics Module for mechanical engineers.

Engineers working on large models will certainly want to pay attention to the performance improvements from COMSOL. The company reports that the meshing, sections and rendering of models with thousands of domains and boundaries will be 10 times faster in this release.

Performance improvement chart based on data courtesy of COMSOL.

Functionality

Speedup

Sections of domains and boundaries

10x

Virtual Operations for mesh preparation

10x

Swept meshing

10x

OpenGL rendering

10x

CAD importa

5x

Load/save of MPH files

2-10x

The goal is to increase the software’s efficiency. And to that point, Bjorn Sjodin, vice president of Product Management at COMSOL, said, “To fulfil this commitment, COMSOL's development team ensures that each update of the COMSOL software provides more efficient solvers, meshing and physics modeling functionality.”

Simulation of Rotordynamics Comes to COMSOL Users

Rotordynamics analysis shows the pressure distribution in the lubricant of the bearings (3D rainbow plot), the von Mises stress (3D blue plot) and displacement of the bearings (2D orbital plot). (Image courtesy of COMSOL.)

The Rotordynamics Module is designed to help engineers simulate the lateral and torsional vibrations as well as the gyroscopic effects that could disrupt mechanical designs.

The last thing any designer wants is to see their products wear down bearings and whirl out of control after hitting a critical rotation or experiencing a mass imbalance. This module will help engineers to ensure that all the parts of their designs will remain within the rotational design limits. It can also assess the stresses on the rotor and natural frequencies.

As a result, this module is likely to interest those in the electrical, aerospace and automotive industries.

“With the Rotordynamics Module, users can take into account the effects of various components such as disks, bearings and foundations,” explained Prashant Srivastava, technical product manager at COMSOL. “Users will also be able to easily post-process their results directly within the software to present the results of their analysis as Campbell diagrams, modal orbits, harmonic orbits, waterfall plots and whirl plots.”

The Rotordynamics Module is available to engineers as an add-on to the Structural Mechanics Module.

Other improvements to COMSOL 5.2a include:

  • Support for macOS Sierra
  • Waterfall and whirl plots
  • The ability to specify a stop time value when performing batch runs
  • Mass transport within fractured surfaces and porous materials
  • Time-to-frequency Fast Fourier transform (FFT) for heat transfer simulations
  • Solar irradiance when simulating ambient settings

One of the leading features of COMSOL is its ability to create simulation apps. These apps can be made by simulation experts who can then democratize their expertise so that nonexperts can benefit from CAE technology.

To learn more about COMSOL's simulation apps, read: Application Builder Launched with COMSOL Multiphysics 5.0.