White papers
AltaSim has been writing up its simulation work since 2002 – from prosthetic heart valve fatigue to ceramic matrix composite manufacturing, and most recently the multiphysics problems showing up inside AI data centers. Every paper below is free to download.
Simulation-Driven Engineering for Modern Data Centers
Handbook methods and single-physics models are quietly failing in high-density facilities. This paper shows where – and what integrated analysis reveals instead.
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Simulation-Driven Engineering for Modern Data Centers
AI workloads are pushing electrical, thermal, structural and acoustic systems past the point where tabulated values and single-physics models hold up. This paper walks through where coupled simulation changes the decision: busway and cable thermal limits, airflow and water use, rack weight and seismic response, and battery storage thermal and EMI risk.
Why Geometry Matters in Battery Simulation
Simplified battery models assume uniform behavior throughout the cell – but nonuniformity is what sets the performance limit once cells get compact, conformal and hard-driven. AltaSim compared two lithium-ion geometries under identical conditions from 0.5C to 5C, and the internal gradients appeared in different places, with different severity, in each.
Simulation-Driven Medical Device Development
Medical devices rarely fail because one physical domain was misunderstood in isolation; they fail at the interfaces, in patient-variable conditions where measurement is limited. This paper covers multiphysics coupling, model fidelity, validation and uncertainty quantification, and the workflow habits that keep a model credible under regulatory review.
Use of Computational Simulation of Medical Technology
A survey of how physics-based modeling supports medical device work at every stage – proof of concept, product design, manufacturing process and patient safety – with examples spanning tumor ablation, drug-delivery inhalers, orthopedic implants and MRI compatibility for implanted devices. It makes the case that simulation compresses development time and cost while complementing, not replacing, physical and clinical testing.
Geophysical Wave Propagation
A finite element treatment of wave propagation through soil, aimed at border security, defense and energy exploration work where near-surface sensors have to make sense of a noisy signal. Resolving both P and S waves shows subsurface waves still carry significant magnitude 50 m from the source, and the finite element approach removes the regular computational grid that finite-difference methods require.
Analysis of Transient Electromagnetic Dipole
Models how a transient current pulse through an electric dipole propagates into conductive, dissipative media – the physics behind geological mapping of mineral deposits, mobile communications and detection of unexploded ordnance. The applied pulse does not survive the trip unchanged: the resulting field shifts in shape, amplitude, duration and timing because the wave number is nonlinear and the response spans near, intermediate and far fields.
Analysis of Acoustic Response of Rooms
Uses COMSOL Multiphysics to predict how specially shaped acoustic distribution panels redistribute sound energy in recording studios, auditoriums and conference halls. Optimizing panel design, location and orientation produces an even energy response across the whole volume and the full audio spectrum, eliminating the unwanted resonances that dominate below 500 Hz.
Analysis of the Acoustic Response of a Railroad Bridge
Couples an eigenfrequency analysis of a through-truss railroad bridge at Fort Leonard Wood with pressure acoustics, using the structure's own vibration modes as the acoustic source. The bridge behaves as a directional source, radiating along the river bed perpendicular to traffic with minimal influence from topography – the basis for simple, inexpensive acoustic monitoring of aging infrastructure.
Prediction of Failure in Existing Heart Valve Designs
A damage-tolerant fracture mechanics study of outlet strut fracture in the Björk-Shiley convexo-concave valve, combining coupled fluid-structure interaction with Paris' Law crack growth across both long- and short-crack regimes. Its warning is about materials, not just this device: Nitinol's fatigue threshold is roughly half that of the Haynes 25 used here, so it demands considerably greater diligence in design and manufacture.
Simulation of Manufacturing Process of Ceramic Matrix Composites
Models the ceramic matrix composite production route for jet engine components running above 2000°F, coupling unsaturated flow through Richards' and Darcy's equations with capillary transport, chemical reaction, porous-media heat transfer and anisotropic residual stress. The resulting tool ranks the many interdependent process parameters, so cycle time, yield and production problems can be worked out before mass production rather than during it.
Fatigue Evaluation of a Prosthetic Heart Valve
Couples CFD and FEA through a fully-coupled element-free technique to reconstruct the loading on a Björk-Shiley occluder during valve closure, then applies fracture mechanics to pre-existing manufacturing flaws. The design changes made in late 1983 and early 1984 – a wider gap between strut tip and disc well, and repositioned strut attachment points – brought stresses below the threshold for crack growth, and no failures are documented after April 1984.
Fluid-Structure-Acoustic Interactions
Solves the continuum equations of solid mechanics simultaneously with the Navier-Stokes equations using an Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian formulation, so the mesh moves with the structure and the solution stays stable under substantial deformation. Applied to a valve closing under a transient pressure pulse, it shows how flow-induced vibration and noise can be caught in biomedical, automotive and petrochemical designs before anything is manufactured.
Analysis of Lubricant Flow through Reynolds Equation
Treats lubricant flow in the narrow gap between a plunger and barrel by implementing Reynolds equation as a weak-form boundary condition, coupled to conduction heat transfer and thermally driven structural deformation. Because the thin film never has to be meshed, the method sidesteps the length-scale mismatch that makes conventional Navier-Stokes meshing of this problem impractical.
“Trust But Verify”: Questions Decision Makers Should Ask About Computer Simulations
Written for executives and product managers who have to act on FEA results without being FEA specialists, this piece lays out what to ask about assumptions, input parameters, mesh and element sensitivity, boundary conditions, and correlation with physical test data. Its argument is that leaders do not need the mathematics – they need commonsense explanations, simple models first, and a disciplined trust-but-verify habit.
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