SUCCESS STORIES IN R & D
These user success stories will give you an idea of how COMSOL products have been used to solve problems and achieve real competitive advantage. The latest stories can be ordered free-of-charge here.
COMSOL Multiphysics in Research and Development
In their efforts to use metamaterials to construct the world’s first working prototype of an invisibility cloak, researchers relied on modeling to lead them to the materials and designs that would make this sci-fi dream a reality. This work was acknowledged by Science magazine as being among the most important scientific breakthroughs of 2006.
The least-explored region of the electromagnetic spectrum consists of terahertz waves, which at 100 GHz to 10 THz fall between microwaves and infrared light. Only in recent years has the development of suitable waveguides for the technical maturation and widespread commercialization of T-ray technology started.
With the help of multiphysics modeling, a group of researchers at the NATO Undersea Research Centre in La Spezia, Italy, are studying how to use low-frequency echoes to determine what an object is made of. Here, they are required to couple acoustics with the structural properties of such objects, while also considering Lamb waves.
Railguns—which propel a projectile using electromagnetic forces—promise to revolutionize projectile launchers. To adequately design them, researchers must understand the inner workings of these weapons. Here, using modeling, Dr. Paul Cote makes his contribution to the understanding of this phenomenon.
The “hydrogen economy” aims to reduce the USA’s reliance on imported fossil fuels along with the emission of greenhouse gases. Funding for alternative cycles is limited, so modeling identifies designs that are likely to be successful. Using computational simulation, Argonne was able to quickly get answers to questions that helped with their decision-making.
XEUS (The X-Ray Evolving Universe Spectrometer) is a mission being conducted by the European Space Agency with the goal of gaining a better view of the universe and the Big Bang. Time’s earliest black holes and galaxy clusters leave behind signatures in the form of X-rays that we can measure.
Wouldn't it be a great service for the diagnosing and treating genetic of diseases if physicians had a disposable instrument for detecting DNA that worked as simply and quickly as today's home-pregnancy tests? This isn’t such a farfetched proposition thanks to advances in microfluidic-based concepts.
Only through advanced packaging techniques can we take advantage of state-of-the-art microelectronic devices. The flip-chip method has become a cost-effective means of erasing many packaging and thermal issues that could spell disaster for high-density, high-power integrated circuits.
Making sense of the contractions and dilations in the heart requires far more than simply considering how mechanical deformations force blood through hollows in cardiac tissue. Also to be considered is the transfer of charged ions in heart tissue that produces electrical pulses to trigger the mechanical contractions.
Researchers have been exploring for an accurate yet non-invasive method of predicting eye diseases at earlier stages than are currently possible. One potential diagnostic method is to measure the ocular surface temperature (OST) and compare thermal variations in the eyeball to computer models as well as clinical data.
The image of a physician performing a bedside diagnosis might not be one that comes to mind when thinking of the typical person performing computational simulations. However, this technology has spread into so many areas and has become so accessible to the practicing scientist and engineer that there’s hardly a “typical” modeler any more.
A self-propelled, remote-controlled micro-robot revolutionizes heart surgery via more effective 'peep hole operations' - and the same technology also leads to cheaper flights by reducing the air resistance around an aircraft in half. These widely differing applications may be the result of a basic research project on micro-robots.
In this rapidly developing and highly competitive market, the time from idea to prototype has shrunk. Therefore, tools for developing virtual prototypes have become exceptionally important. Optimizing a fuel cell’s performance in combination with its auxiliary equipment and operation of the electric motor requires a lot of mathematical puzzling.
"Free" neutrons are hardly free at all when it comes to money - actually, it takes enormously sophisticated equipment to create them, and only a handful of places on earth do it. Who needs free neutrons, anyway? Developers of advanced materials, new biotechniques, and cold fusion make just a few candidates.
How relaxed protein strands loop and lace or "fold" controls the form they take and the functions they perform in the human body. If the stretched out chains of amino acids slip into a particular knot you get hemoglobin that carries oxygen through the blood. A different 3D lace becomes an antibody to fight infection.
The process of manufacturing nanowires—the smallest possible threads—is not wholly understood. Prof. Stig Stenström of Lund University in Sweden created a COMSOL Multiphysics model of nanowire growth to help researchers understand and better exploit the underlying phenomena.
A group of scientists from ththree institutions are researching how to use information about electromagnetic fields in volcanoes to investigate and observe their activity and ultimately predict volcanic crises. Powerful simulations gives them deeper insights into volcanic processes and moves them a step closer to more accurate predictions.
How easy is it to set up a multiphysics model to perform the fluid-structure interaction that occurs within sail design? Professor L. Teresi decided to find out. In principle, The physics describing the structural mechanics of the sail was directly coupled to the viscous and momentum forces resulting from the flow model – multiphysics.
Dr. Ernst develops cold crucibles that melt incredibly hot metals and other materials without letting the melt touch the container walls. With these methods he can refine ultra-pure titanium and other materials. His approach combines electric currents, induction, heat transfer, and magnetic levitation.
Automotive and other vehicular applications place their own special requirements on fuel cells. In designing a cell, many things comes into play: cell potential, the pressure of the gas in the anode and the cathode, relative humidity, and even the dimensions of key elements, among them the membrane and the gas channels.
In 1949, Professor Stiefel rented the Zuse Z4 for complex calculations. It used 2200 relays and a mechanical memory of 64 words. He first used this machine to solve a 4th order partial differential equation related to the damming of a water reservoir and to solve a system of eight ordinary differential equations to calculate rocket light.
Ultrasound technology is able to produce stronger paper, reduce costs, and provide a global solution to the problem of wastewater. This has all been possible since a growing company, Ultra Sonus, Öregrund, developed a fifty year-old technology that was previously only used at the lab-scale.