Time to Get Onboard With Multiphysics

by Bruce Engelmann, SIMULIA | Published November 9, 2007

The word “multiphysics” is suddenly getting a lot more buzz these days and you may be wondering why. I myself have been in the simulation field for some 20-odd years and people have been talking about multiphysics for at least that long.  So, what's changed?

The difference is that people can do real simulation with multiphysics now. It's pretty incredible seeing the look on customers' faces when we first show them the simulations we can accomplish. We are not in the pioneer days any more, only solving “toy” problems: we've reached a threshold where engineers can now study complex multiphysics behavior simply and quickly on their desktops.

It's a matter of a number of advances coming together.  One is the advent of high-performance computing: having the compute power to simultaneously solve large, coupled physics problems. It's becoming more economical for people to run such simulations using multiple processors and compute clusters, making “personal” supercomputing possible.

Another factor is the significant maturity of many disciplines such as structures and fluid dynamics. Companies have evolved their simulation methods to a point where they can make fewer engineering approximations. They're starting to consider multiphysics as fertile ground for bringing design and engineering groups closer together to study realistic product behavior.

The final element is that commercial software, such as Abaqus, has progressed to a level where it can truly support and manage coupled physics in such areas as fluid-structure, thermal-mechanical, structural-acoustic, and structure-piezioelectronic interactions. With all of these elements coming together you'll be seeing more capabilities available, more sophisticated coupling between different physics, and increasing customer use of the technology.

Usability and openness are two critical elements for software developers as multiphysics offerings continue to expand.  Simulation is, by its very nature, quite heterogeneous. There are going to be solutions, provided either by other companies or by internal applications, that people want to keep using.  So it's going to be very important for us to maintain openness both for commercial partners and for our customers' internal tools.

I believe we're at a threshold in seeing results with multiphysics. You can now take commercial software tools, and the kinds of techniques you've used in the past for each of the physics types, and you can put them together to solve the problems that benefit from coupling. Going forward, continued improvements in the hardware, and the technology running on  it, will enable people to tackle problems that are increasingly complex, with more accurate results.

If you've been sitting on the sidelines, now is the time to jump onboard with multiphysics. You can do real simulation today and, as even more capabilities are developed, you can ride the multiphysics train forward toward greater discovery and innovation.

Bruce Engelmann is the chief technology officer of SIMULIA, Dassault Systemes’ brand for realistic simulation. Send e-mail about this commentary to DE-Editors@deskeng.com.

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