Users of Flux, the low frequency electromagnetic and thermal simulation software, will now be able to use co-simulation with solidThinking Activate. Flux, a part of the Altair HyperWorks simulation platform, has released its latest version, Flux 12.3, which includes several new enhancements, including higher quality meshes, new ways to deal with 3D CAD imports and co-simulation for advanced analysis.
Flux has its own embedded electric circuit editor, but when more advanced analysis is necessary, for everything from the design of complex drives to the study of load impact, the solidThinking Activate system simulator is a new tool to consider. Co-simulation in Flux is available for 2D, 3D and skew models, and for devices such as rotating machines, sensors, transformers and linear actuators. Considering motion and eddy currents, the coupling allows the implementation of control strategies and the computation of all the associated losses, giving insight into the global performance of the system.
“With Flux 12.3 we have opened the door to multi-disciplinary optimization for design in electrical engineering,” said Vincent Leconte, Director Business Development EM Solutions, Altair.
The addition of Flux technology to the Altair HyperWorks suite of products in 2016 has further enhanced Altair’s electromagnetic simulation offering by addressing the lower frequency simulation requirements of customers. This broad software coverage and domain expertise supports Internet of Things (IoT) industrial applications and the rapidly growing EM market.
“Flux now benefits from the latest technologies available in Altair, ensuring added value for our users,” said Leconte. “We have integrated new CAD import and meshing capabilities and speeded-up 3D model creation. Offering new connections with the other Altair simulation tools allows users to couple different physics and propose a complete simulation solution.”
Some other notable enhancements that come in Flux 12.3 more precise heat transfer evaluations, better calculation of vibrations, and more robust and faster handling of complex 3D geometries. The more precise evaluation of the heat transfer is enabled with Altair AcuSolve. As a first version of the coupling with AcuSolve, a one-way coupling is available with losses sent from Flux to AcuSolve, to compute the temperature distribution. Coupling with OptiStruct, Altair’s structural linear and nonlinear solver, creates the ability to calculate the vibrations generated by electromagnetic forces in electric machines to reduce their noise. Altair’s HyperMesh and SimLab can now be used for the simplification and meshing phase, and thereafter the 3D mesh can be imported directly into Flux.