COMSOL, Inc. announced the release of COMSOL Multiphysics® version 5.2 providing the simulation community the only fully integrated environment for creating simulation apps. This version of COMSOL Multiphysics® and COMSOL Server™ simulation software environment delivers new features, improved stability and robustness, and faster execution. Major upgrades to the Application Builder available in COMSOL Multiphysics include the new Editor Tools for easy creation of user interface components, commands for dynamic updates of graphics, and more control over the deployment of simulation apps. Running simulation apps using COMSOL Server in a corporate network or in the cloud is now up to five times faster. Many updates, new features and simulation application examples are also available for the add-on electrical, mechanical, fluid, and chemical products.
In COMSOL Multiphysics® 5.2, the Application Builder features an optimized workflow. The new Editor Tools make the creation of user interface components easy and quick. Simulation specialists can now bring any model parameter, physics setting, and results, such as numerical data and plots into the user interface of an app with a few mouse clicks. This is one of several tools available to create practical simulation apps and share the power and accuracy of COMSOL Multiphysics throughout organizations.
The Application Builder allows companies to communicate across multiple departments, knowing that the simulation expert is able to maintain control, enforce quality standards, and ensure that the results can be trusted.
“We leveraged the Application Builder to more efficiently communicate complex design ideas across multiple simulation and process departments, which has allowed app users to easily explore the outcome of proposed designs,” said Borja Lazaro Toralles, Research Engineer on the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) simulation team. MTC used COMSOL products to model the shaped metal deposition (SMD) 3D printing technique and created a simulation app based on it.
Among the new user-inspired features is the ability to update graphics while running an app. The app designer can present app users with different plots while solving; this takes them through the progression of the solution process and presents them, for example, with geometry, mesh, and solution plots. The app designer can also customize the graphics toolbar with new buttons and include camera movements.
The new features in version 5.2 of COMSOL Server™ are designed to facilitate collaboration between users and departments while simplifying administration tasks. “A new caching function allows applications to start five times faster or more; additionally, administrators can assign a single application to be launched instantaneously when users log in,” said Ed Fontes, CTO of COMSOL. “These are just few of the many new features and concepts introduced with version 5.2.”
COMSOL Multiphysics version 5.2 provides simulations experts with a cutting edge user experience in simulation app design and sharing by integrating highly productive model building, app design, and deployment tools that allow their simulation applications to be used by users everywhere.
“We’ve been creating simulation apps that our field engineers can apply directly without having to go through R&D,” said Brice McPherson, Senior Engineer at Wolfspeed. His team at Wolfspeed uses simulation in the design of high-performance, extreme environment wide band gap power semiconductor packages. “I can foresee simulation apps becoming the primary tool used by our engineers.”
To demonstrate the power of the Application Builder, a plethora of new apps have been added to the extensive Application Libraries showcasing the capabilities of the Application Builder. The Application Libraries include apps ranging from membrane dialysis, water treatment, thermoelectric cooling, heat exchangers, touchscreen design, magnetic prospecting, piezoacoustic transducers, muffler design, MEMS sensors, and pressure vessels.
“With version 5.2 we ship about 50 apps demonstrating the depth and power of the Application Builder and the COMSOL Server,” said Svante Littmarck, CEO of COMSOL. “These apps are meant to provide COMSOL users with examples that can be easily inspected, edited, and used as a starting point for their own applications. We had a lot of fun building these apps and love the new Application Builder functionality! For example, if we take a look at the Mixer app, which ships with the Mixer Module, we are presented with a sophisticated application that can be used to simulate almost any type of mixer without requiring expertise in differential equations or CFD. This takes modeling and simulation to a whole new level.”
