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Prometech Software, Inc. (President: Tsuyoshi Sumiya, Head Office: Tokyo, hereinafter Prometech) has released Particleworks for ANSYS 1.1, an enhanced version of the interface product between Particleworks and the world-leading multiphysics simulation software ANSYS in December 2019.

Particleworks is a mesh-free liquid-flow simulation software based on the moving particle simulation (MPS) method, which is capable of complicated fluid simulations such as liquid dropping, mixing, lubrication, spraying, sloshing and splashing. Because of its easy-to-use operation and unique simulation capabilities, Particleworks has been introduced mainly in the automotive industry and other various fields including machinery, electric, material, food, chemical, biomedical, energy, and civil engineering industries all over the world. Coupling such complicated liquid behaviors with other physical phenomena such as structure, heat, and airflow, it enables more realistic design verifications much closer to actual products’ behavior. Consequently, high expectations for the easy-to-use interface between Particleworks and other CAE software products have increased recently.

Particleworks for ANSYS 1.0 released in July 2019, to respond to such demand. This interface product for ANSYS provides a specialized fast simulation tool for customers that perform liquid flow simulations with large free-surface deformation, complementing Fluent’s high-resolution, high-accuracy free surface results. It makes Particleworks to be able to be used in the ANSYS Workbench environment for combining with ANSYS’ simulation capabilities for more realistic product design evaluations. In version 1.0, coupling with structure has been added, which made structural deformation calculation by fluid pressure and thermal stress calculation using heat transfer coefficient possible. The newly released Particleworks for ANSYS 1.1 has been upgraded with the new capability of liquid simulations considering the effect of the airflow calculated by ANSYS Fluent (thermal fluid simulation software). 

Figs. 1 and 2 show the airflow simulation around the side mirrors using ANSYS Fluent and the simulation of raindrops behavior using Particleworks in consideration of the effect of the airflow respectively. In case airflow is not taken into account, raindrops move only by gravity, by which the streamline draws a parabola. When considering the airflow effect, physically realistic raindrops behavior caused both by gravity and the airflow around the side mirrors can be reproduced.

By realizing the coupling of ANSYS Fluent and Particleworks on the Workbench environment, it can be expected that evaluation and understanding of fluid dynamics behaviors in design and development processes will be promoted and it will enhance competitiveness in the future. Prometech will continue to expand its capabilities and release new versions of Particleworks for ANSYS.