Thermal stresses are an important design concern for many engineering applications.  When temperatures change, materials can deform or warp leading to the build-up of internal stresses even without the presence of external constraints which can further increase thermal stresses.  Modeling and simulation can calculate the deformations, stresses and changing contact pressures using thermal-structural interaction techniques.  […]

Many engineers solve heat transfer challenges regularly. Over the last 20 years, AltaSim has developed hundreds of simulations for our clients that include heat transfer as a component. This Tip comes from our experience in solving a heat transfer problem that included thin layers of different materials. Solid elements are the most widely used type

Engineers post process their simulation results for reasons that range from better understanding their results to communicating those results to others.  Developing labels that clearly identify the conditions for a simulation communicates the critical input parameters for the plotted results. In this Tip and Trick, the simulation engineers at AltaSim will show a way to

An electromagnetic wave consists of a coupled oscillating electric field and magnetic field which are always perpendicular to each other. By convention, the “polarization” of electromagnetic waves refers to the direction of the electric field. In 3D geometry, arbitrary polarization is naturally defined by the prescribing the directions of all three components of the electric

In working with our customers, AltaSim often seeks to solve an initial problem in two dimensions to save computational time. The CAD we receive from our customers is routinely in three dimensions, and our engineers need to reduce the dimensionality of the solution space. In the past, our engineers spent significant time re-creating CAD in