Ansys launches instant simulation Discovery Live 3D design software platform

Back to Live, Back to Real-time Simulation.

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Ansys, a leading company in engineering simulation and 3D design software solutions, has launched its new Discovery Live platform, which enables the instant simulation of 3D designs.

From September 7th 2017 until an as yet unconfirmed date in January 2018, Ansys is giving its latest offering away for free as part of an initial tech preview initiative. The company believes it will not only return some feedback on the product, but also greater awareness of how Discovery Live can benefit engineers.

TCT was privy to an exclusive walk through of Ansys’ Discovery Live platform, presented by Justin Hendrickson, Director of Product Management and the leading figure in the software’s development. Hendrickson showcased the software’s capabilities, which included the detailed inspection of CAD files and how designs react when simulated in a variety of physics behaviours.

“At Ansys we have a vision and a goal about making simulation pervasive. We really want to expand the use of simulation,” Hendrickson began. “One of the big questions we have asked ourselves is ‘What do we have to do to allow simulation to be used by a broader group of engineers?’ Do we need to make it easier? Do we need to make it faster? Do we need to make it more interactive?”

Ansys is confident Discovery Live achieves all three. The traditional process for simulation involves cleaning up geometry; laborious meshing; potentially re-meshing; re-defining; complex physics set-up; waiting for solving; and post processing. Ansys has taken all of these tasks ‘that take hours, days, even months’ and turned them into something ‘that takes seconds.’ The software gets its name from its capabilities: display and interaction is so fast it appears live; calculating and simulating is so fast it appears live; and connection to geometry is so fast it appears live.

It enables real-time solution. As soon as the user inputs a new characteristic, the simulation is updated. The program doesn’t need to restart, it updates in seconds. “As far as we’re aware, this is the first real time physics environment, and furthermore, the first real-time physics environment that lets you change geometry within it,” Hendrickson says.

There are four physics simulation options that Ansys feel gives its customers a breadth of behavioural conditions that parts might want to be tested against: Thermal conduction; fluid flow; structural mechanics; and modal frequency analysis.

During the Discovery Live walk through, Hendrickson designed a heat sink – the type that would sit on top of a CPU in a desktop computer, dissipating heat on top of the chip - within minutes. His initial design, a flat sheet of metal made out of aluminium, was put through the fluid flow simulation and was exposed to 40W of force coming from the CPU in his simulation, and was reaching temperatures of over 100 degrees C in the centre of the part. Deeming this too hot, a quick re-design, which saw 100 prongs added in about 30 seconds, saw that temperature drop to 37 degrees C. Putting this heat sink in a virtual wind tunnel simulation, Hendrickson was able to assess the velocity of air flow, composite display of temperature, and how the heat transfers from the heat sink and downstream.

Later, he uploaded an STL file of a part with extremely complex, triangle-based, geometry. Traditional simulation of a part this complex, Hendrickson explained, would be very difficult, mainly due to the meshing and the lengthy solve time. Carrying out a structural simulation, within seconds, a slight delay in solve time due to the part’s complexity, the user would be able to see the areas of the part under high stress.

Hendrickson sees Ansys as a ‘generalised simulation tool’, that, for additive manufacturers for example, can be used prior to 3D printing software. A model could be designed and simulated in Discovery Live, and then uploaded to a second additive manufacturing-specific software to prepare its 3D print.

“A lot of 3D printing software helps you prep your model for the print, helps to split it into pieces to fit your build envelope, generate support structures – that software is great at that,” he said. “We want to make sure you have the design, that could go all the way up to lattice, and design with the best lattice. When you’re ready to print that lattice, that’s when you should use the additive software.”

Discovery Live is the result of a huge research and development effort from Ansys which has relied heavily on customer feedback, tailoring the solution to the needs and wants of engineers. It is based on ‘the massive parallel nature of graphics processing units (GPUs)’. NVIDA GPUs have been harnessed to deliver top of the range computing capabilities, meaning results can be calculated ‘thousands of times faster’ than conventional methods of simulation.

The software’s capabilities, in particular the four physics simulation behaviours enable, combined with the real-time speed, Ansys hopes, will see an accelerated adoption of simulation in the engineering space – and a saving in costs too. “We’ve found less than one in six engineers use simulation and this is what we want to change,” Hendrickson said. “When you look at various other studies, you find that so much of our cost of developing and making products are determined by decisions we make really early in the design. We think the cost of making a mistake, something that could have been covered with simulation, is really big and that’s part of the motivation to use things like simulation earlier to cover and avoid those costs as early as possible.

“I believe part of innovating and creating really great ideas and improvements in new products is experimentation. Experiments are one of the most powerful tools in any engineer’s or designer’s toolbox and simulation is the best way to experiment.”

“Discovery Live’s breakthrough technology places real-time simulation in the hands of every engineer. Coupled with an equal step change in ease of use, it enables true digital experimentation,” Mark Hindsbo, vice president and general manager, Ansys said in a company press release. “This will fundamentally change product development, inverting the traditional process by bringing simulation upfront and enabling millions of engineers to benefit from the power of simulation.”

For nine months, Ansys has been piloting the software with a range of its customers – including small, medium and large businesses. It has allowed them to make changes where necessary before its release to market. The following four month period, the tech preview ahead of its commercial release in January, Ansys hopes will raise awareness of the importance of simulation. Cummins, a manufacturer of engines, is one of many customers to have tested the Discover Live software – the company is also one of an apparent 498 of the Fortune 500 companies to harness Ansys technology – and has been very impressed with the platform.

“Ansys Discovery Line can help us potentially move faster, learn new things and help us be more innovative,” said Bob Tickel, director of structural and dynamic analysis, Cummins. “The tool allows us to use multiple physics and the results are practically instantaneous, so we can get answers to the quick ‘what-if’ studies very quickly – helping us engage more people in simulation with the ultimate goal of moving faster, better product on time.”

Ansys will be showcasing the capabilities of the Discovery Live platform, as well as a range of its other software solutions, at the upcoming TCT Show. 

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