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Invisibility cloak, friction stir welding
among many multiphysics applications in new magazine

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BURLINGTON, MA (May 1, 2007)—The latest edition of the COMSOL News includes a number of stories that illustrate innovative uses of multiphysics modeling software to help researchers and scientists understand processes, create virtual prototypes, and speed their products to market at less expense. Here is a snapshot of just some of the contents:

• Research—scientists at Duke University use modeling to help them build the world’s first prototype of an invisibility cloak
• Aerospace—Airbus uses modeling to study friction-stir welding as an alternative to arc welding and rivets
• Education—Undergraduates design a motorcycle engine block and then use modeling to study its cooling efficiency
• Defense—Engineers use modeling to make railguns, which use no chemical propellants, viable in the field
• Applications—Fluid-structure interaction has become a valuable addition to multiphysics modeling

Just one user who enjoys great productivity gains from this link is Mark Fowler, Senior Engineer at Digital Fusion in Huntsville, Alabama. That firm's Advanced Technology Division provides a variety of engineering services to a broad base of customers in the defense and aerospace industries. "Our designs are extremely sensitive to their thermal and structural operating environments," explains Fowler. "COMSOL provides a finite element analysis tool that allows us to study how our designs react to simulated conditions to which the hardware will be exposed. We use the SolidWorks Live Connection to interactively iterate our CAD designs based on the simulation results. This combination has allowed us to conduct studies in a short time, which helps increase our iteration rate for hardware designs."

About the COMSOL product line

COMSOL Multiphysics® is a scientific-software environment for the modeling and simulation of any physics-based system. A particular strength is its ability to account for multiphysics phenomena. Optional modules add discipline-specific tools for chemical engineering, earth science, electromagnetics, heat transfer, MEMS, and structural mechanics. Other products include COMSOL Reaction Engineering Lab®, which allows users to model reacting systems; and COMSOL Script™, a MATLAB®-compatible programming language that works both as a general-purpose scientific computational tool and provides a textual based interface to COMSOL Multiphysics models. The COMSOL products are available for the Windows, Linux, Solaris, and the Macintosh operating systems. Full details about COMSOL Multiphysics and related products are available at www.comsol.com.

About the COMSOL Group

COMSOL was founded in 1986 in Stockholm, Sweden, and has grown to include offices in the Benelux, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and a US presence with offices in Burlington, MA, Los Angeles, CA, and Palo Alto, CA. Additional information about the company is available at www.comsol.com.

COMSOL, COMSOL Multiphysics, COMSOL Reaction Engineering Lab, and FEMLAB are registered trademarks of COMSOL AB. COMSOL Script is a trademark of COMSOL AB. Other products or brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.