Industries We Explore

Aerospace

Over the recent years, the aerospace industry has pioneered improvements to ensure the right engineering capabilities are available for enhancing fuel efficiency, lowering environmental impact, and fulfilling customers’ demands for safety, convenience and affordability.

Presently, product development companies in this industry are making huge investments in R&D—almost 40% above most manufacturing industries. Notably, instead of wholly depending on physical testing, the aerospace industry has spearheaded the use of computational techniques to trouble-shoot design errors and build efficient and reliable products.

In designing any type of aerospace and defense system, from aircraft to armored vehicles to electronic appliances, researchers usually apply different physics.

For instance, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is normally applied to develop efficient flight aerodynamics. Pressure-based technologies and sophisticated meshing technologies are often applied to develop environmentally-friendly applications and other hazard prevention systems, such as fire suppressors. Also, the use of high-performing computing (HPC) is leading to major breakthroughs in simulation of airframe and managing engine noise.

Researchers around the world are leveraging the capabilities of ANSYS aerospace design software to enhance innovation through exploration of an extensive range of product design options—including optimizing performance of design materials, simulating various crash incidences, and improving the reliability of automated adaptive meshing technologies.

The ANSYS design software covers the entire lifecycle of product development in the aerospace industry, consisting of different application areas:

  • Interdisciplinary design, exploration, and optimization
  • Automatic aircraft appliances
  • Environmental management
  • Propulsion engines
  • Aerodynamics and noise management
  • Electronic machines
  • On-board systems, structural dynamics, and materials
  • Aircraft engines
  • Hypersonics and survivability
  • Thermal management devices

Aeronautics

Aircraft makers are increasingly under pressure to build fuel-efficient, environmentally-friendly, and cost-effective planes without compromising on safety and reliability. Therefore, engineers use state-of-the-art technology, together with integrating robust composite materials, to build better aerodynamic designs, leading to lighter, sturdier, and more convenient planes for various purposes, including commercial and military use.

By using the reliable simulation tools from ANSYS, engineers can increase the accuracy of forecasting laminar-turbulent flow transition, something normally difficult to achieve. If engineers can correctly determine the extent of laminar flow, they can forecast drag to within one count and effectively discover ways of lowering drag.

With the simulation software from ANSYS, engineers can tell the state of the boundary layer and forecast where the transition from laminar to turbulent flow will take place. This way, making precise predictions is easy, for example, determining where the airplane wing will lose lift.

The ANSYS software has an extensive range of simulation tools that address different application areas, such as structural dynamics, fluid dynamics, and electromagnetics. Therefore, rectifying errors and omissions during the aircraft design phase is easy. For example, when it’s discovered the plane’s weight exceeds the stipulated specifications, necessary adjustments can be made quickly.

Using multiphysics simulations, developing highly-capable airplanes is possible. ANSYS simulated environment assists to lower late-stage design failures, deliver optimized designs that can withstand static and dynamic loads (for example, bird collisions and ballistic impacts), and enhance the performance of integrated communications devices.

Astronautics

The spacecraft sector is undergoing fast growth with big things happening daily. Governments and private companies are increasingly venturing into space travel for promotion of national pride, enhancements of scientific research, and commercial purposes.

The modern advances in space exploration demands for accurate, fast, and reliable engineering designs, which can work right for the first time—and every time. The rigors of space and extremities of the environment do not offer opportunity for a second chance.

Therefore, developing robust virtual prototypes capable of performing safely, reliably, and as promised is paramount. With the stout ANSYS software, engineers are able to model the extreme conditions and deliver vehicles (manned or unmanned) capable of pushing space exploration efforts further, faster, and without cost constraints.

The wide-ranging and multiphysics capabilities of ANSYS software provide engineers with the capabilities to correctly apportion weight for the payload and launch vehicle, appropriately account for fluid-structure interactions under extreme conditions, and accurately test for space survival.

For example, with ANSYS tools, engineers can accurately forecast how mixtures of cryogenic fuels and oxidizers will react on earth and in space, and prevent any accidents to the rocket propulsion engine.