Just last month, Comsol, Burlington, Mass., released the latest version of its Multiphysics, version 4.3b which contains five new application-specific modules and expanded modeling and analysis tools. The five new modules include:

• Multibody Dynamics Module – This module provides users with the ability to analyze the assembly of rigid and flexible bodies. Transitional and rotational displacements, as well as locking, can be simulated for a variety of joint types, including prismatic, hinge, cylindrical screw, planar, ball, slot, and reduced slot joints.
• Wave Optics Module – This module allows users to analyze electromagnetic wave propagation in optically large structures, such as optical fibers and sensors, bidirectional couplers, plasmonic devices, metamaterials, laser beam propagation, and non-linear optical components.
• Molecular Flow Module – This module offers users the capability to simulate rarefied gas flow in complex CAD geometries of vacuum systems. This includes such applications as mass spectrometers, semiconductor processing, satellite technology, particle accelerators, shale gas exploration, and flow in nanoporous materials.
• Semiconductor Module – This module enables the detailed analysis of semiconductor device operations at the fundamental physics level allowing for the modeling of PN junctions, bipolar transistors, MOSFETs, MESFETs, thyristors, and Schottky diodes.
• Electrochemistry Module – This module has tailored interfaces that are now available for electroanalysis, electrolysis, and electrodialysis. Typical applications include: glucose sensors, gas sensors, chlor-alkali electrolysis, desalination of seawater, waste water treatment, and control of electrochemical reactions in biomedical implants.

The expanded modeling and analysis tools include:

• Geometry and Mesh – A new feature that allows users to make quick what-if studies by taking a 2D geometry from the cross-section of a 3D geometry. A new curvilinear coordinate system tool makes it easier to define anisotropic materials in curved geometric shapes. Also, increased automated swept meshing capabilities allow for faster modeling.
• Interfacing and Productivity – A new One Window Interface with LiveLink for Inventor allows users to work with Comsol Multiphysics from within the Inventor environment. New updates in LiveLink for Excel allow you to import multiple models and export material data from Excel to Comsol.
• Electrical – A new magnetics solver facilitates faster stationary and time-dependent magnetics simulations. A new electrical contact feature is added to the AC/DC Module; the electric current flowing between two surfaces now varies according to surface properties and contact pressure. The periodic structures for electromagnetic waves feature is now available in the RF Module.
• Mechanical – Bolt pre-tension and beam cross-section analysis can now be simulated in the Structural Mechanics Module. Cumulative damage for fatigue analysis with random amplitude loads is now available in the Fatigue Module. The Heat Transfer Module has been enhanced with multiwavelength surface-to-surface heat radiation, heat transfer with phase change, and thermal contact features.
• Fluid – The new frozen rotor feature in the CFD Module efficiently solves for the pseudo-steady flow field in rotating machinery for laminar and turbulent flow. A new thin screen feature for thin permeable barriers allows the simulation of wire gauzes, grills, and perforated plates. Additionally, the SST turbulence model and a new CFD solver are now available.
• Chemical – The new thin impermeable barrier for mass transport feature allows users to represent thin walls as interior boundaries with a no-mass-flux condition on both sides.