Editor's Pick: ANSYS Version 17.2 Released

ANSYS just released version 17.2 of its portfolio of engineering simulation solutions. Here's a look at what made it today's Editor's Pick of the Week selection.

ANSYS 17.2 has lots of new functionality and enhanced multiphysics coupling, especially for those of you designing antennas, electric machines, embedded systems and powertrains. Additionally, safety-critical applications see improved requirements management. If there's an overall theme to this release, it's that 17.2 shows a lot of hard work going into making it easier for you to work with combined simulation technologies--not only across the ANSYS portfolio but with external applications as well.

Some examples: Powertrain designers using ANSYS Chemkin-Pro to simulate chemical reactions for combustion systems now have plug-in compatibility with the GT-SUITE 2016 software for 0D/1D/3D multiphysics simulation from Gamma Technologies, and GT-SUITE users can now access the detailed and validated reaction mechanisms in the ANSYS Model Fuel Library.

For aerospace, automotive, energy and rail mission- and safety-critical applications, ANSYS 17.2 provides a complete workflow from software requirements through software design and code generation to software testing and verification. Links to requirements management tools like DOORS and Reqtify have been improved, enabling you to incorporate ANSYS SCADE solutions for embedded designs into existing workflows.

Tightly related is a new SCADE Test environment capability that automates the testing of embedded displays and provides enhanced support for hardware-in-the-loop testing with NI's VeriStand as well as AUTOSAR system design import.

For wireless device and IoT (Internet of Things) developers, ANSYS 17.2 debuts a new interface between the ANSYS HFSS and ANSYS HFSS SBR+ (formerly Savant) solver option. It enables imports of HFSS antenna designs with the HFSS SBR+ solver for validating an antenna's design and placement.

ANSYS Chemkin-Pro supports ERNs (equivalent reactor networks) that allow simulation of real-world combustors, burners and chemical reactors, enabling efficient prediction of emissions with detailed chemistry. Here, CFD (computational fluid dynamics) results are displayed with an ERN overlay that captures the dominant flow patterns and re-circulation zones. Image courtesy of ANSYS Inc.

Speaking of interfaces, enhancements to the ANSYS Maxwell to ANSYS Icepak interface now let you evaluate electric machine and electro-mechanical cooling strategies upfront in the design process. Maxwell's RMxprt electrical machine synthesis tool can now output machine geometry and temperature characteristics of a design's materials, eliminating manual entry of temperature characteristics before doing an Icepak thermal simulation.

From today's Editor's Pick of the Week write-up, you can learn a bunch more about the 17.2 release of the ANSYS portfolio, including enhancements to ANSYS Workbench that make it easier to customize and integrate workflows across the enterprise. Make sure to download the list of ANSYS 17.2 capabilities for a full look at ANSYS' suite of tools.

Thanks, Pal. – Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood

Editor at Large, DE