Electrical | Posted on
November 6th, 2012 by
Fanny Littmarck
Permanent magnet generators, or PM generators as they are also called, generate power without batteries. PM generators consist of a magnetic stator coiled with wire and a wheel with permanent magnets rotating inside the stator. From motorcycles to wind farms, PM generators can be used in many electrical machinery applications. Let’s take a look at how these types of generators work and how they can be simulated.
Read more on: Simulating Permanent Magnet Generators
Conference | Posted on
November 5th, 2012 by
Cinzia Iacovelli
They say that an image is worth more than a thousand words, and I couldn’t agree more. In that vein, we’d like to show you our enthusiasm over the European COMSOL Conference held in Milan, Italy earlier in October, through a slideshow of pictures from the event. We already thanked you in advance for making this our most-registered for event of the year. Now we want to thank you again with this slideshow.
Read more on: Photos from the European COMSOL Conference
Postprocessing | Posted on
November 2nd, 2012 by
Bethany Moatts
I’m back on the blog with the latest installment in the Postprocessing and Visualization Videos series. The two-part video shown here covers “Basic Visualization”. Chapter 1 and 2 will give you an overview of COMSOL’s visualization tools so that you can optimize how you view your model, both while setting up your physics and while postprocessing. I explain two tricks in the video that I’d like to draw your attention to in particular.
Read more on: Video Tutorial: Basic Visualization
Electrical | Posted on
November 1st, 2012 by
James Ransley
Since I joined COMSOL in 2010 I’ve presented about half a dozen webinars. Last week we held a webinar on Vacuum System Simulations and it was definitely the most fun webinar to-date. Historically, simulation has not been used extensively in the vacuum industry, so I was nervous that there wouldn’t be much interest in such a specialized topic.
Read more on: Vacuum System Simulations Webinar and Videos
Fluid | Posted on
October 31st, 2012 by
Fanny Littmarck
When you need to mix something at a very small scale you don’t reach for a teeny-tiny whisk. If you’re working with microscale biochemical applications you’d be more likely to rely on diffusion to mix fluids. With highly ordered laminar flow there is no turbulence involved, thus making diffusion a prime candidate for “getting the job done”. But what if you need to mix larger molecules? Larger molecules mean higher molecular weight, which in turn leads to very long equilibration times. This is where the electroosmotic micromixer comes into the picture.
Read more on: Microfluidics Model of an Electroosmotic Micromixer
Electrical | Posted on
October 30th, 2012 by
Fanny Littmarck
What if this Halloween you could take your costume to the next level and turn yourself invisible? There are bounds of references to invisibility throughout fairy tales, folk lore, and pop culture. From capes and hats to cloaking devices, many fictional characters have been provided with a means for rendering themselves invisible. In the spirit of Halloween, let’s have a closer look at cloaking from a fictional and scientific stand-point.
Read more on: Halloween Special: Cloaking Devices and Capes of Invisibility
Mechanical | Posted on
October 26th, 2012 by
Fanny Littmarck
Out of all metals, the most frequently extruded is aluminum. Aluminum extrusion entails using a hydraulic ram to squeeze an aluminum bar through a die. This process will form the metal into a particular shape. Extruded aluminum is used in many manufacturing applications, such as building components for example. The process of shaping metal alloys, like aluminum, can be modeled using COMSOL Multiphysics.
Read more on: FSI: Aluminum Extrusion Model
Postprocessing | Posted on
October 25th, 2012 by
Phil Kinnane
AMD has a new architecture for their graphics cards called Graphics Core Next (GCN). Perfect for compute-intensive applications, the new W-series are optimized and guarantee ultimate performance for visualizing and working with geometries and complex models. COMSOL is proud to announce that we now support the new W5000 and W7000 AMD FirePro™ Graphics Cards. This continues the partnership we have with AMD that I highlighted in a previous blog post about AMD FirePro graphics cards.
Read more on: COMSOL now Supports the New W5000 and W7000 AMD FirePro™ Graphics Cards
Multiphysics | Posted on
October 24th, 2012 by
Fanny Littmarck
It’s no secret that there’s a lot of guesswork involved in oil production. Oil companies make “Big Money” decisions based on estimates – estimates with huge margins of error. What’s more, there is an incredible amount of risk involved, but with the potential for a large pay-off if all goes according to plan. The plan is based on “best guesses” and less than perfect data. Still, there are many big players in the oil industry that are doing very well in this area. All based on estimates made by engineers.
Read more on: Oil Companies Rely Heavily on Engineers
Mechanical | Posted on
October 23rd, 2012 by
Cinzia Iacovelli
When you work with multiphysics all day you tend to notice physics phenomena everywhere you go. For me, one such moment was when I was walking on the beach this past summer. I noticed that the sand appears whiter around a person’s feet than elsewhere. You may have noticed this too, and like I, wondered “why?” This phenomenon can be explained by the theory of poroelasticity.
Read more on: Poroelasticity in Sand
