Highlights of

COMSOL Multiphysics 4.3

New Products

• Nonlinear Structural Materials Module • Nonlinear material models for structural mechanics.

• Elastoplastic, hyperelastic, viscoplastic, and creep material models.

• Large strain plastic deformation.

• Pipe Flow Module • 1D flow, heat, and mass transport in 2D and 3D pipe networks.

• Direct coupling between pipe flow and volumetric CFD.

• Pipe cross-sections, friction models, valves, pumps, elbows, T-junctions.

• Corrosion Module • Corrosion and corrosion protection simulations based on electrochemical principles.

• Galvanic, pitting, and crevice corrosion.

• Cathode protection.

Major New Features

• Geometry and Mesh – Faster meshing for imported CAD files and the LiveLink products for CAD.

– Mesh selections for creating new boundaries and domains for any imported mesh.

• Electromagnetics – AC/DC: 3D rotating machinery and automatic coil excitation.

– RF: New polar plots for far field in 2D and 3D.

• Structural Mechanics – New nonlinear solver for mechanical contact and highly nonlinear simulations.

– Load cases for easy setup of multistep simulations.

• CFD – Turbulent mixing for mass transport simulations.

• Heat Transfer – Solar irradiation from latitude, longitude, date, and time.

• Particle Tracing – Brownian force and particle-particle interactions.

– Secondary emission and sticking probabilities.

COMSOL Multiphysics 4.3 Product Suite

Nonlinear Structural Materials Module

• Description: – Nonlinear Material Models for Structural

Mechanics and MEMS.

– Add-on to the Structural Mechanics Module or

MEMS Module. A few of the listed material

models were previously available in the

Structural Mechanics and MEMS Modules.

• Applications: – Any structural deformations where

deformations are large enough or operating

conditions are such, e.g. high temperature, that

material nonlinearities become important.

Animation:

Flattening of a pipe

(animation in

presentation

mode).

Necking of a metal bar.

This example is a classical

benchmark for large strain

plastic deformation.

Flattening of a pipe

with large strain

elastoplastic

deformation.

Nonlinear Structural Materials Module

• Features & User Interfaces: – Elastoplastic Material Models

• Isotropic, Kinematic, and Perfectly Plastic

Hardening

• Large-strain plasticity, for elastic and

hyperelastic materials

• Orthotropic Hill Plasticity

• Tresca and von Mises Yield Criterion

• User-defined Flow Rules

– Viscoplastic Material Model

• Anand

– Creep Material Models

• Coble, Deviatoric, Garofalo, Nabarro-

Herring, Norton, Norton-Bailey, Potential,

User-defined, Volumetric, Weertman

– Hyperelastic Material Models

• Arruda-Boyce, Money-Rivlin: two, five, and

nine parameters, Murnaghan, Neo-

Hookean, Ogden, St Venant-Kirchoff, User-

defined

Pipe Flow Module • Description:

– Flow, heat, and mass transport in pipe

networks.

– The pipe systems are modeled as

geometrical 1D lines or curves embedded in

2D or 3D and are created using the existing

drawing tools in COMSOL Multiphysics.

– Add-on to COMSOL Multiphysics.

• Applications: – Hydraulics

– Water distribution systems

– Energy: nuclear, hydropower, geothermal

– Cooling systems in combustion engines and

turbomachinery

– Heating systems

– Chemical process industry such as plant

distribution systems

– Oil refinery pipe systems

– Lubrication

Pipe system for geothermal

heating.

Cooling of a plastic mold of a

steering wheel – including

pipe flow in cooling channels.

Pipe Flow Module • Features & User Interfaces

– Seven Physics user interfaces:

• Pipe Flow, Single Phase

• Water Hammer

• Non-Isothermal Pipe Flow

• Heat Transfer in Pipes

• Reacting Pipe Flow*

• Transport of Diluted Species in Pipes*

• Pipe Acoustics, Transient**

*=more advanced user interfaces available when combined

with other transport modules

**=when combined with the Acoustics Module

– Bidirectional couplings can be made between pipes

and 2D and 3D solid or fluid domains, as well as

between flow, heat, and mass applications.

– Pipe cross-sections, automatic transition between

laminar and turbulent flow, surface roughness, and

different friction models.

– Preset options for valves, pumps, elbows, T-junctions.

A reactor simulation for synthesis

of phtalic anhydride under

autothermal conditions using the

Pipe Flow Module together with the

Chemical Reaction Engineering

Module.

Corrosion Module

• Description: – Corrosion and corrosion protection simulations based

on electrochemical principles.

– Galvanic, pitting, crevice corrosion, and more.

– Cathode protection.

– Add-on to COMSOL Multiphysics.

• Applications: – Corrosion and corrosion protection of:

• Off-shore structures such as oil rigs

• Ships and submarines

• Civil-engineering structures

• Chemical process industry equipment

• Automotive parts

• Mechanical structures in aerospace applications

Galvanic corrosion of a

Magnesium Alloy (AE44) - mild

steel couple in brine solution (salt

water). The electrode material

removal is represented with a

moving mesh.

Corrosion Module

• Features & User Interfaces: – Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Current

Distribution

– Corrosion and Moving Mesh:

• Secondary Currents

• Tertiary Currents, Nernst-Planck Equation

– Thin shell electrodes

– Influence of material transport and material

concentration on corrosion and corrosion

protection including diffusion, migration and

fluid flow effects

– Include effects of heat transfer on material

transport and corrosion rates

– AC impedance simulations

Mesh and Geometry • Mesh selections for creating new

boundaries and domains for any imported

mesh.

• Virtual Geometry operations now also

available for 2D modeling.

• Export geometry, mesh, and deformed

mesh to the STL file format.

• Extrude and revolve directly from 3D

surfaces.

• Move and change the order of geometric

primitives and operations in the Model

Builder tree.

Modify the boundary and

domain subdivision of an

imported mesh with new mesh

selection operations.

Studies and Solvers

• New user interface for parametric sweep

with multiple parameters – Sweep for multiple parameters with dedicated

visualization and postprocessing tools.

– Choose between sweeping for Specified

combinations only or All combinations.

• New Cluster Sweep and Batch Sweep – User interface for starting and stopping jobs for

individual parameter combinations.

– Accessing parametric sweep results before

completion of full sweep.

• New nonlinear solver – Double dog-leg solver addresses larger class of

highly nonlinear simulations.

• Modify the physics tree and variables for

each study step – Disable and enable Physics settings per study

step to create customized analysis sequence .

Results and Visualization

• Report Generator News – The report generator now outputs to

Microsoft Word file format, in

addition to the previous HTML

format. Office 2007 and 2010 are

supported.

– The report generator now adapts to

local languages.

• New plot types – 3D and 2D far field plots for RF and

acoustics applications

– Comet tail plot for particle tracing

– 2D histograms

– Sector symmetry data set and plots

The report generator now

outputs to Microsoft Word

format, in addition to the

previous HTML format.

A particle tracing simulation of

a mixer visualized with the

new comet tail plot.

COMSOL Desktop

• The Model Library supports partially

stored example models – Many more tutorial models easily accessible

without occupying precious hard drive space.

– Download large tutorials and new tutorials on

demand with the Model Library Update.

• Control storage of solutions in memory

and number of processors used directly

from the Preferences window.

• Sort Physics settings for Domain,

Boundary, Edge, and Point based on

Space Dimension.

• Updated GUI layout with new easy-to-

reach placement of buttons in settings

windows.

CAD Import Module

• Faster meshing for imported CAD files with the

CAD Import Module and the LiveLink products

for CAD, particularly when using Virtual

Geometry operations.

• The CAD Import Module and the LiveLink

products for CAD now supports the following

new and updated file formats

– Creo™ Parametric 1.0 (new)

– ACIS® (SAT) R22

– CATIA® V5 R21 (needs license for Import for

CATIA V5)

– Inventor® 2012

– Parasolid® R23, R24

– SolidWorks® 2012

This geometry of a lung was imported using

the CAD Import Module. The upgraded

meshing algorithm creates a mesh in 30

seconds on an workstation with an Intel Xeon

W3503 2.4GHz processor. Geometry courtesy

of Prof. Thomas Royston and Ying Peng,

Acoustics & Vibrations Laboratory, University

of Illinois at Chicago.

LiveLink for SolidWorks®

• Automatically link parameter names from SolidWorks to

COMSOL for easier set up of parametric sweeps.

• Control associativity per geometric entity type to improve

performance for synchronizing large models.

• One Window Interface

– Particle Tracing is now available in the One Window

Interface.

– Selections and selection highlighting improvements.

– Virtual Geometry operations are now available.

– Display of progress information for solution process in a

docked window.

– Connection to external server or cluster is now available.

• The LiveLink for SolidWorks now supports the following

new and updated file formats

– Creo™ Parametric 1.0 (new)

– ACIS® (SAT) R22

– CATIA® V5 R21 (needs license for Import for CATIA

V5)

– Inventor® 2012

– Parasolid® R23, R24

– SolidWorks® 2012

LiveLink for Pro/ENGINEER® and

Creo™Parametric

• Automatically link parameter names from

Pro/ENGINEER or Creo Parametric to

COMSOL for easier set up of parametric

sweeps.

• The LiveLink for Pro/ENGINEER and the

LiveLink for Creo Parametric now supports

the following new and updated file formats

– Creo™ Parametric 1.0 (new)

– ACIS® (SAT) R22

– CATIA® V5 R21 (needs license for Import for

CATIA V5)

– Inventor® 2012

– Parasolid® R23, R24

– SolidWorks® 2012

LiveLink for Inventor®

• Automatically link parameter names from

Inventor to COMSOL for easier set up of

parametric sweeps.

• File based CAD import now supports the

following new and updated file formats:

– Creo™ Parametric 1.0 (new)

– ACIS® (SAT) R22

– CATIA® V5 R21 (needs license for Import for

CATIA V5)

– Inventor® 2012

– Parasolid® R23, R24

– SolidWorks® 2012

AC/DC Module

• Automatic coil excitation for 3D coils

– Single turn coil excitation.

– Multiturn coil excitation.

– Arbitrary shaped coils including toroid,

helicoid, saddle.

• 3D rotating machinery

– Brushless motors and generators, radial

and axial flux machinery, brushed DC

electric motors.

– Dedicated mixed electromagnetic potential

formulation for rotating machinery.

Automatic coil excitation of a

saddle coil. Arrows and colors

represent the magnetic flux

density (B-field).

A DC motor simulated with the

3D rotating machinery user

interface. Visualized are: B-

field, coil current, axial torque,

and rotational angle.

RF Module

• New far field plots – Fast 2D and 3D far field plots

– User-defined cut plane far field plots

– Directivity calculation

• Dispersive materials – Drude-Lorentz, Debye, Sellmeier

• Porous media

• Transmission line equations

• Many new tutorial examples

Far field plots for 3D,

2D, and 3D cut

planes.

Dispersive

material models. Electromagnetic

wave propagation

through porous

media.

Structural Mechanics Module

• New nonlinear solver for mechanical contact and

highly nonlinear simulations. – New “double dog-leg“ solver is latest addition to COMSOL’s

nonlinear solvers and is the new default for mechanical contact

simulations.

• New periodic boundary condition – Dynamic cyclic symmetry and Floquet periodicity condition

for solid mechanics and piezoelectric models.

• New mechanism for load cases – Tag loads or constraints with new load and constraint

groups.

– Control activation of load cases in Study settings.

• Membrane – Elastic membrane for very thin structures with negligible

bending stiffness.

• Kinetic energy – Kinetic and elastic potential energy now available for all

structural mechanics Physics user interfaces.

• Silent boundaries – New low-reflecting boundary for time and frequency domain

simulations.

• Rigid connector for shells – Combine rigid connectors for shells and solids.

Analysis of an

impeller using the

new dynamic cyclic

symmetry boundary

condition.

New tools for load

and constraint

cases.

Geomechanics Module

• Large Strain Plasticity for Elastoplastic

Material Models

• Tension Cut-Off – Tension cut-off is now available for the soil

plasticity and concrete materials models:

Drucker-Prager, Mohr-Coloumb, Matsuoka-

Nakai, Lade-Duncan, Bresler-Pister, Ottosen,

and William-Warnke.

• Creep Material Models – Deviatoric

– Potential

– User-defined

– Volumetric

Tension cut-off is now

available for soil plasticity

and concrete material

models.

Acoustics Module

Transfer impedance, microphone

response, and sound pressure

level (SPL) of a generic ear canal

coupler.

• Thermoacoustics

– Thermoacoustic-shell interaction user interface: Combine the

Acoustics Module with the Structural Mechanics Module for

bidirectionally coupled thermoacoustic-shell simulations.

– Thermoacoustic modal analysis.

• Pipe acoustics

– Combine the Acoustics Module with the Pipe Flow Module for

transient acoustics in 1D pipes.

• New far-field calculation with dedicated far-field plots in 1D,

2D and 3D.

• New periodic boundary conditions with cyclic symmetry and

Floquet periodicity for pressure acoustics, thermoacoustics,

solid mechanics, elastic, and poroelastic waves.

• Silent boundaries

– New low-reflecting boundary for time and frequency domain

simulations.

• New Models

– Porous absorber

– Condenser microphone

– Generic 711 coupler, occluded ear canal simulator

– Acoustic scattering off an ellipsoid

MEMS Module

A piezoresistive pressure sensor

simulation showing stress-induced

potential difference produced by a four

terminal piezoresistor when the

membrane in which it is embedded is

deformed by an applied pressure.

• Piezoresistivity user interfaces – 3 new user interfaces for piezoresistivity in shells,

domains, or with boundary currents.

– Piezoresistive material library for single crystal and

polycrystaline p- and n-doped Silicon.

• S-parameter calculations – Compute S-parameters for piezoelectric, electric, and

electromechanical devices.

• Upgrades to the Electromechanics user

interface – New linear elastic dielectric and linear elastic material

material models -- control which domains have active

electric and elastic physics settings.

• Coordinate visualizations – Visualize the different material orientations in stacks of

piezoelectric materials.

• New periodic boundary condition – Dynamic cyclic symmetry and Floquet periodicity

condition for solid mechanics and piezoelectric models.

A capacitive pressure sensor simulated

using the Electromechanics user

interface of the MEMS Module.

CFD Module

• Turbulent Mixing – The user interfaces for Transport of Diluted Species and

Transport of Concentrated Species feature a new

Turbulent Mixing sub-feature. The sub-feature models

the additional mixing caused by turbulence by adding

turbulent diffusivity to the molecular diffusivity.

• Updated Vacuum Pump boundary condition – Now a separate boundary condition with enhanced

graphical support which shows the intended flow

direction during physics set up.

• Time-dependent rotational speed for Rotating

Machinery: 𝜔 = 𝜔 (𝑡).

• Updated turbulent drift in the Mixture Model

interface increases both accuracy and

stability.

A baffled turbulent mixer

simulation using the new

Turbulent Mixing user interface.

Heat Transfer Module

• Automatic computation of solar position based on

astronomical data.

• Interior thin-walls for non-isothermal and conjugate heat

transfer flow simulations.

• Enthalpy and internal energy are now calculated using state

integrals. This gives increased accuracy for heat and energy

balances. This improvement is included in all heat transfer

interfaces in all modules.

• Updated Fan and Grille boundary conditions

– Now separate boundary conditions with enhanced graphical

support which shows the intended flow direction during physics

set up.

The External Radiation Source

settings for the new Solar position

option. The solar irradiation

direction is automatically computed

from location, date, and local time.

Isotherms in a structure

separating two floors of a

building. Comparison with

European standard EN ISO

10211:2007 for thermal

bridges in building

constructions.

Microfluidics Module

• Transitional flow – The transitional flow user interface is now

available in 3D.

– Choose velocity space resolution by selecting

from a list of predefined quadrature settings.

– Optimized solver suggestions for controlling

trade-off between memory usage and solution

time.

• Controlled diffusion micromixer example – New version of this model comes with flow-rate

based inlet boundary conditions and shows how

the concentration dependent viscosity affects

the velocity profile.

A controlled diffusion micromixer

simulation with a concentration

dependent viscosity.

Plasma Module

Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor

Deposition (PECVD) simulation in

the Plasma Module. Shown is the

magnetic flux density in the plasma

as well as the accumulated growth

height of Silicon.

• New solver for inductively coupled plasmas

(ICP) – Drive plasmas with fixed total power.

– Addresses larger class of plasma simulations.

• New models: – Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition

(PECVD).

– Electronegative inductively coupled plasma, oxygen

chemistry.

• Improved handling of cathode fall region in DC

discharges with mesh control edges.

• Ion angular energy distribution function

(IAEDF) with 2D histograms.

• Grouping of variables for results processing.

• Reduced electric field study type for the

Boltzmann interface.

Particle Tracing Module

Animation: Particle-particle

interaction illustrating

gravitational attraction.

Animation: Secondary emission of

particles in the oscillating

electromagnetic field of a schematic

multipactor. Visualization with new

comet tail plot.

• New built-in forces

– Brownian, thermophoretic, magnetophoretic, and Schiller-

Naumann drag force.

• Particle-particle interaction

– For continuously acting forces: Coloumb, Lennard-Jones,

and user defined.

• Secondary emission of particles

– Emission may depend on incident velocity and energy.

• Sticking expressions and coefficients

– Particle stick to walls with a given probability or user-defined

expression.

• New release mechanisms

– Release particles with combinations of initial positions and

velocities: spherical and hemispherical.

• 2D histograms

– Visualize ion angular energy distribution function (IAEDF).

• Distribution functions for auxiliary dependent

variables

– Allows for mass and size distributions of particles.

Chemical Reaction Engineering Module

Dissociation in a Tubular Reactor:

Irreversible dissociation reaction of a species.

As the reactant is consumed, the

concentration in the gas phase increases,

which leads to an expansion of the gas

mixture, and an acceleration in the flow field.

• Reaction engineering for porous media – Reaction engineering chemistry can now be exported to the

following interfaces for transport in porous media: Free and Porous

Media, Heat Transfer in Porous Media, and Transport of Diluted

Species in Porous Media.

• Equilibrium reactions in reacting systems – Equilibrium reactions in reacting systems can now be exported to

the Transport of Concentrated Species and Nernst-Planck

interfaces.

• CHEMKIN® import – Greatly improved CHEMKIN import with support for hundreds of

reactions.

• Increased performance for simulations with many

chemical species – Uniform scaling of concentration variables improves greatly the

solver performance for models with many chemical species.

• New models – Protein adsorption

– Dissociation in a tubular reactor

– Compression ignition chemistry in an engine, with more than 300

reactions

Batteries & Fuel Cells Module

• New Separator domain property

– Available for Lithium-Ion Battery and Battery with Binary

Electrolyte interfaces.

– Electrolyte volume fraction, electrolyte conductivity, salt

diffusivity, transport number, active dependence, and

effective transport parameter correction.

• Shell Electrode interface

– Electrode, Depositing Electrode, and Corroding Electrode

options for modeling thin electrodes.

• Electrode Potential

– Give reference electrodes or points for electrode potential.

• New models

– All-Solid-State Lithium-Ion Battery

• Shows how to use the Tertiary Current Distribution interface to

model the currents and electrolyte mass transport in a thin-film

all-solid-state lithium-ion battery.

– Capacity Fade of a Li-ion Battery

• Demonstrates how to use the new Events interface to simulate

battery capacity loss during cycling. The battery is switched

between constant voltage and constant current operation, both

during charge and discharge. Cycleable lithium is lost in the

negative electrode due to a parasitic lithium/solvent reduction

reaction.

New separator domain

property for Lithium-Ion Battery

and Battery with Binary

Electrolyte interfaces.

New All-Solid-State

Lithium-Ion Battery

example model.

Electrodeposition Module

Deposition of an inductor coil. The

geometry includes the extrusion of the

deposition pattern into an isolating

photoresist mask, and a diffusion

layer on top of the photoresist.

• Shell Electrode interface

– Electrode and Depositing Electrode options for modeling thin

electrodes.

• Electrode Potential

– Give reference electrodes or points for electrode potential.

• Moving boundary smoothing

– Moving boundary smoothing of Depositing Electrode Surface

ensures robust material build-up of thick deposited layers.

• Boundary stretch compensation

– New boundary stretch compensation for mass conservation

on moving boundaries.

• New models

– Inductor Coil

• Deposition of an inductor coil in 3D with moving mesh.

– Electrodeposition on a Resistive Patterned Wafer

• Copper deposition on a resistive wafer in a cupplater reactor.

Shows the benefit of using a current thief for a more uniform

deposit thickness.

– Superfilling Electrodeposition

• Shows that concentration of a surface catalyst is increased due to

the area contraction of a moving boundary.

Optimization Module

• Time-dependent sensitivity and

optimization – Time-dependent sensitivity and

optimization is now generally available.

– New tutorial example for time-dependent

optimization of the nonlinear model

equation

– This example shows how to find the long-

term periodic steady-state solution to a

nonlinear time-dependent simulation. The

model equation is representative of

certain plasma simulations but is also

important in other physics disciplines.

Solving such problems with the time-

dependent optimizer can accelerate

computations significantly.

Time-dependent optimization: finding

the long-term periodic steady-state

solution to a nonlinear time-dependent

simulation.

Enjoy!