Free intro to EM simulation software

Ansoft has launched a new campaign to expand the use of its electromagnetic and electrostatic simulation software by offering a free subset of the company's commercially available Maxwell 2D.

Ansoft has launched a new campaign to expand the use of its electromagnetic and electrostatic simulation software by offering a free subset of the company's commercially available Maxwell 2D.

The software, marketed as Maxwell SV, contains advanced 2D electric fields, AC/DC magnetic fields, and eddy-current solvers that engineering design professionals, professors, and students use to design components such as sensors, actuators, motors and transformers.

"When I founded Ansoft 18 years ago, I believed that electromagnetic field simulation would become increasingly important to mainstream electrical design", said Zoltan Cendes, Ansoft's Chairman and Chief Technology Officer.

"That vision is truer today than ever before.

And we're accelerating this trend by offering a free version of software that is already widely used in the industry.

I fully expect that many more practicing engineers will download the software for their daily work".

With the free download, users around the world have access to premium EDA software that can calculate electrical quantities, including force, torque, inductance, capacitance, and resistance.

The software also features a graphical postprocessor for field visualisation.

Maxwell SV's key features include: 2D electric field simulation; 2D DC magnetic field simulation; 2D AC magnetic field simulation; graphical 2D modeller and postprocessor; automatic, adaptive meshing; material database; and DXF/DWG file import.

"My students and I have used Maxwell software for more than three years, and we eagerly await the release of the new student version", said John Brauer, Adjunct Associate Professor at the Milwaukee School of Engineering's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

"We use the software to find electrostatic fields in printed circuits, to compute inductances of coils, and to find magnetic fields and forces of solenoid actuators.

Maxwell's accuracy is impressive, and my students can learn to use the program in less than an hour".

Maxwell SV and related documentation can be downloaded free of charge from the Ansoft website.

Note that the software is not supported.

(This was Electronicstalk's Top Story on 25 October 2002).

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