Beta Edition of COMSOL Multiphysics Version 4.0 Released

By DE Editors

COMSOL released the beta edition of COMSOL Multiphysics 4.0 at the Fifth Annual COMSOL Conference in Milan. Version 4.0 delivers the COMSOL Desktop, a new user interface to facilitate building and running simulations.

“Over the last few years the use of multiphysics simulation has grown rapidly, especially within engineering and R&D departments. With the new COMSOL Desktop environment we’re making it easier for more engineers to apply multiphysics to more applications,” says Svante Littmarck, president and CEO of COMSOL. “The COMSOL Desktop streamlines the modeling process for a broad user base. This unified interface is built for cross-disciplinary applications and is quick to learn. COMSOL Multiphysics version 4.0 is key in advancing the product design processes for our customers by providing easy access to powerful tools.”

Users can set up the desktop’s appearance using its docked window placement capabilities that include the Main menu, Model Builder, and a Help Desk as well as Settings, Messages, and Graphics windows.

The Model Builder brings a dynamic model configuration approach to simulations. Building a model is a straight-forward process of following along the model features. Users right-click to perform common tasks such as importing CAD, meshing, specifying material properties, solving, and plotting results. If changes need to be made,  the Model Builder provides access to any part of the model settings. Users can record and save the steps of the set-up to use sequentially as a model is automatically re-evaluated and refined. Dynamically updated context-dependent help enables easy browsing and extends the search functionality.

CAD interoperability remains a top priority to provide a path for CAD users to connect to COMSOL Multiphysics for their simulations. To this end, COMSOL has released the LiveLink for PTC Pro/ENGINEER. By establishing associativity between the two geometry representations, changing a feature in the CAD model automatically updates the COMSOL geometry accordingly. This enables multiphysics simulation involving parametric sweeps and design optimization directly from within Pro/ENGINEER. Versions of LiveLink for SolidWorks and Autodesk Inventor are already available as optional add-ons to COMSOL Multiphysics.

COMSOL Multiphysics version 4.0 expands the geometry functionality with its CAD Import Module, which is based on the Parasolid Editor geometry kernel from Siemens PLM Software. Users now benefit from CAD tools that support Parasolid-based geometry operations directly in the COMSOL Desktop. All solid operations are associative and now allow for multi-parameter sweeps over any group of geometry dimensions. Geometry models created from scratch or modified CAD models can be saved to Parasolid format directly.

COMSOL Multiphysics version 4.0 supports parallel processing on standard multi-core computers as well as distributed memory systems (clusters). Version 4 supports Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, Windows HPC Server 2008, and Linux.

For more information, visit COMSOL.