COMSOL 4.2 Release Highlights

LiveLink™ for AutoCAD®

With the new LiveLink for AutoCAD interface you can transfer a 3D geometry from AutoCAD to COMSOL Multiphysics. The synchronized geometry in the COMSOL model stays associative with the geometry in AutoCAD. This means that settings applied to the geometry, like physics or mesh settings, are retained after subsequent synchronizations. The LiveLink interface is also bidirectional to allow you to initiate a change of the AutoCAD geometry from the COMSOL model.

Electrodeposition Module

The Electrodeposition Module brings the power of COMSOL Multiphysics to electrochemical processes for such diverse applications as chrome plating in automotive industry, e-coating, electro-coloring, decorative electroplating, and electrodeposition for PCB manufacturing.

Microfluidics Module

The Microfluidics Module brings easy-to-use tools for the study of microfluidic devices and rarefied gas flows. Important applications include simulations of lab-on-a-chip devices, digital microfluidics, electrokinetic and magnetokinetic devices, inkjets, and vacuum systems.

One-Window Interface

LiveLink for SolidWorks has been extended with a One Window Interface where a SolidWorks user can stay inside of the SolidWorks environment and work synchronously with COMSOL Multiphysics.

Improved 2D Renderer

The new, faster 2D renderer comes with improved axis labels, easier selection of overlapping pair boundaries, and a new drawing table with grid and rulers that show the position of the pointer.

Material Rendering

Materials are now rendered using color, texture, and reflectance. Gold, copper, air, water, concrete, and some other common materials have their own specific material appearance properties. A material’s appearance can be customized and includes separate settings for specular, diffusive, and ambient colors as well as texture noise levels. To enable texture rendering, set the Visualization preferences to be Optimized for Quality.

Drag-and-Drop in the Model Builder Tree

Drag-and-drop is now supported in the Model Builder tree. Using this feature, you can change the order of existing nodes or copy or duplicate nodes.

Updated Progress and Log Windows

Progress and Log information is now available in separate windows. The Progress window features Auto-clearing. The Log window supports Clear and Lock as well as Resume scroll. There is now an extra log divider with model name when opening a new model.

Small-signal Analysis

Small-signal analysis is now generally available for all modules, including the AC/DC Module.

Lumped Ports for AC/DC Analysis

A Lumped Port boundary feature is now available in the Magnetic Fields interface and in the Magnetic and Electric Fields interface. This feature is used for easier excitation of coils and other conducting structures. It also gives access to S-parameters.

Acoustic-Piezoelectric Interaction

A new multiphysics interface for Acoustic-Piezoelectric coupling makes piezo-acoustics functionality easier to use. Analyses are available for frequency domain and time domain studies and combine features from the Pressure Acoustics, Solid Mechanics, Electrostatics, and Piezoelectric Devices interfaces.

Acoustic-Shell Interaction

A new multiphysics interface for Acoustic-Shell Interaction enables modeling of vibrating thin elastic structures and their induced sound pressure field. The coupling is bidirectional and is available for frequency domain and the time domain studies in 3D. The Acoustic-Shell Interaction interfaces combine features from the Pressure Acoustics and Shell interfaces of the Acoustics Module and the Structural Mechanics Module, respectively.

Elastic and Poroelastic Waves

The Acoustics Module features two new interfaces for waves in solid and porous media. The Elastic Waves interface, for general elastic solids, can be combined with a new Poroelastic Waves interface for frequency-domain analysis of poroelastic wave propagation.

Thermoacoustics

The Acoustics Module features new dedicated modeling tools for thermoviscous acoustics that enable highly accurate simulation of miniaturized speakers and microphones in handheld devices.

The need for thermoacoustics emerges whenever the dimensions of an acoustic device become small compared to the viscous and thermal boundary layers.

Batteries & Fuel Cells Module

The Batteries & Fuel Cells Module features a new AC Impedance Study type for simulating Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS). A new Surface Reactions interface enables modeling of surface reactions on boundary surfaces. A Material Library comes with common battery electrode materials and electrolytes.

New Tutorials

• Edge Effects In a Spirally Wound Li-Ion Battery
• Thermal Modeling of a Cylindrical Li-Ion Battery in 2D
• Thermal Modeling of a Cylindrical Li-Ion Battery in 3D (additionally requires the Heat Transfer Module)
• Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy in a Fuel Cell
• Primary Current Distribution in a Lead-Acid Battery Grid Electrode
• Soluble Lead-Acid Redox Flow Battery

High-Mach Number Fluid Flow

The new High-Mach Number Fluid Flow interface applies when the flow velocity is large enough to introduce significant changes in the density and temperature of the fluid; the thermodynamic properties of the fluid are coupled. Appreciable changes in the fluid properties are encountered as the flow velocity approaches, or exceeds, the speed sound. As a rule of thumb, velocities greater than 0.3 times the speed of sound are considered to be high Mach number flows. Important applications include: nozzles, pipe networks, valves, and aerodynamic phenomena.

Reacting Flow

A new physics interface for Reacting Flow, Diluted Species, makes coupled mass and momentum transport in free and porous media available from one single user interface. A similar physics interface for Concentrated Species is also available. The model coupling for the velocity field and mixture density is set up automatically. In addition, the effective transport coefficients in a porous matrix domain can be derived based on the corresponding values in for a non-porous domain.

Infinite Elements for Diffusion

COMSOL Multiphysics Version 4.2 introduces a new way of defining Infinite Elements for simulation of unbounded regions. Since different physics can share the same Infinite Elements, you can now define Infinite Elements in the Model Definitions node, eliminating redundant action on each Physics Interface.

The interface for Transport of Diluted Species now provides Infinite Elements for diffusion simulations using the new mechanism. The picture shows the new Model Builder tree node.

Parameter Estimation in Chemical Reaction Models

By combining the Chemical Reaction Engineering with the Optimization Modules, you can use a new Parameter Estimation feature for predefined reactor types in the Reaction Engineering interface.

Surface Reactions

A new Surface Reactions interface is used for reactions involving surface adsorbed species and species in the bulk of a reacting surface. The interface is applied to the boundary of a model and is coupled to a mass transport interface in the adjacent bulk domain. The Surface Reactions interface can be used together with the Chemical Species Transport, Reacting Flow, and the Electrochemistry interfaces. Predefined expressions for the growth velocity of the reacting surface makes it easy to set up models with moving boundaries.

Thermal Wall Functions with Radiation

Thermal wall functions with turbulence now support the Surface-to-Surface Radiation and Highly Conductive Layer features. This enables very sophisticated thermal simulations: including any combination of turbulent flow, heat transfer in fluids, heat transfer in solids, heat radiation, and thin thermally high-conducting layers such as metal sheets.

Heat Transfer in Multilayered Structures

For heat transfer in thin layers, a new multilayer option of the Thin Thermally Resistive Layer makes it possible to quickly model thin structures with multiple layers of different conductivity.

Fan and Grill Boundary Conditions

Electronic cooling simulations are made easier by the new Fan and Grill boundary conditions. A new Fan boundary condition is also available on interior boundaries, called a slit condition. Fan curves can be entered, or loaded from file, in table format for use at inlets in flow models.

Thermal Light Color Table

A new default Color Table (color scale) named Thermal Light is optimized for visualization of heat transfer simulations. The color range is truncated at the lower end and eliminates the darkest shades of red.

Surface Reactions for Plasmas

New tools are available for modeling surface reactions and species.

The picture shows the accumulated height of Silicon deposited on the wafer surface as a function of time. The model verifies that the total mass in the system is conserved. The principle can be applied to study processes like chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and plasma enhanced vapor deposition (PECVD).

Far-Field in a Medium (RF) and New Models

For computing radiation patterns from antennas and radiating components, far-field evaluation is an essential tool. The far-field feature has been extended and now supports computing the far field in a medium other than vacuum. It has changed from being a boundary feature to being a domain feature with a domain selection and a boundary selection.

Piezoelectric PMLs

New Piezoelectric Perfectly Matched Layers (PMLs) are capable of simultaneously absorbing the elastic and electric components of an outwards traveling piezoelastic wave. This feature is important for modeling piezo transducers and acoustic wave filters such as BAW and SAW. The functionality is available in the Structural Mechanics Module, MEMS Module, and Acoustics Module.

Infinite Elements for Solid Mechanics

For Solid Mechanics, certain modeling tasks require the computation of stress and strain for a large slab of material. For practical reasons such models are artificially truncated close to a region of interest and the analyst then faces the problem of what boundary conditions to apply to the truncated domain boundaries. Modeling with Infinite Elements avoids this problem entirely by automatically scaling the computational domain to infinity. The Structural Mechanics and the MEMS Modules offer Infinite Elements as a new feature under the Model Definitions node in the Model Builder tree.

Springs and Dampers

For simulating non-rigid boundaries, new boundary conditions for springs and dampers have been added for points, edges, boundaries, and domains. This functionality is available for all interfaces in the Structural Mechanics Module and for the Solid Mechanics interfaces in the Acoustics and MEMS Modules. Similarly, a new Thin Elastic Layers boundary condition is available on interior boundaries and between pairs in assemblies.

Beam Cross-Section Library with
Common Sections

The Structural Mechanics Module now features a tool for automatic computation of beam cross-section properties for a number of common cross sections when using the Beam interface.

Prestressed Analysis

The Structural Mechanics, MEMS , and Acoustics Modules offer new powerful and easy-to use tools for prestressed analysis of eigenmode and frequency-response. Structures modeled with the Solid Mechanics interface can be prestressed by mechanical, thermal, or arbitrary multiphysics-based loads.

Added Mass

Added mass can now be specified for edges, boundaries, and domains for all interfaces in the Structural Mechanics Module and for the Solid Mechanics interfaces in the Acoustics and MEMS Modules. Important applications are: modeling non-structural added mass for a vibrating structure immersed in a fluid, adding mass from thin layers that are not contributing to the structure's stiffness, correcting for mass changes due to CAD defeaturing, or including mass from components that are not represented by any geometry in the model.

Subsurface Flow Module

The Subsurface Flow Module (previously named the Earth Science Module) benefits from many of the new features of Version 4.2.

Combining the new Geomechanics Module with the Subsurface Flow Module enables new geotechnical multiphysics combinations such as elastoplastic soil models with poroelasticity as well as rock material models with solute transport.

Thin Diffusion Barrier Boundary Condition

A new Thin Diffusion Barrier boundary condition for interior boundaries in the Solute Transport interface enables modeling of thin layers of much thinner diffusion coefficient than that of adjacent domains.