Thermal and stress analysis enhances EM design

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Dec 17, 2003

ePhysics is a new software package that expands the capabilities of Ansoft's HFSS and Maxwell 3D.

ePhysics is a new software package that expands the capabilities of Ansoft's HFSS and Maxwell 3D.

With ePhysics, engineers can now incorporate three-dimensional steady-state thermal, transient thermal and linear stress analysis into their existing electromagnetic-based design flows.

"The combination of increasing frequencies and dissipated power, together with reduced size and weight, has made temperature and stress a great concern to electrical/electromagnetic engineers designing present-day electrical devices", said Dr Zoltan Cendes, Ansoft's Chairman and Chief Technology Officer.

"Often a product's lifetime and/or performance metric is greatly reduced by excessive temperatures and stresses that result from electromagnetic heating and forces.

In other cases, electromagnetic heating and stresses can be harnessed to achieve desired design goals.

In either case, ePhysics extends our core experience in electromagnetic analysis to enable electrical/electromagnetic engineers to optimise their designs for maximum performance and cost efficiency".

Coupling ePhysics with Maxwell 3D provides the crossdisciplinary analysis required in the design of electromechanical devices.

Typical applications include the analysis of electric machines, power-generation systems, transformers, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and solenoids.

HFSS with ePhysics is vital for applications such as high-speed packages, antennas, monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs), high-power microwave devices, military and broadcast communications and biological heating with radio frequency (RF) sources.

These analyses include high-power, temperature induced stress and size changes of design components.

ePhysics' key features include: electromagnetic-centric coupled analysis; an easy-to-use graphical user interface; automatic, adaptive meshing; automated mapping of all electrical losses to thermal sources; automated mapping of all electrical forces to stress analysis; and interactive post-processing for field visualisation ePhysics starts at $19,900 and is available immediately for PC and Unix platforms.