Prometech Software, Inc. (President: Tsuyoshi Sumiya, Head Office: Tokyo, hereinafter Prometech) has released Particleworks for ANSYS, an interface product between Particleworks and the world leading multiphysics simulation software ANSYS on July 25th.

Particleworks, a liquid-flow simulation software based on the moving particle simulation (MPS) method, has been introduced in many industrial fields because of its mesh-free, easy-to-use operation and unique simulation capabilities required for fluid phenomena such as liquid drop, mixing, lubrication, spraying, sloshing and splashing. Its appeal to a broad range of users not only in the automotive industry, but also in the machinery, electric, material, food, chemical, biomedical, energy, and civil engineering industries all over the world has been growing over the past 10 years since its first release in 2009. 

Today, demand for such complicated liquid flow simulation is increasing not only in niche users but also a growing number of CAE engineers that work with structural, dynamic, thermal, electromagnetic, and/or general fluid flow analysis, who expend considerable effort to determine the influence of liquid flows to and from those physical behaviors. This is also true for users of ANSYS, the world-leading multiphysics simulation software.

Particleworks for ANSYS is developed to provide a specialized, fast simulation tool for customer’s performing liquid flow simulations with large free-surface deformation, complementing Fluent’s high-resolution, high-accuracy free surface results. Particleworks is now integrated into the ANSYS Workbench environment and can be combined with ANSYS’ simulation capabilities for more realistic product design evaluations. 

Incorporating Particleworks into the ANSYS Workbench environment enables key features, such as calculating the deformation of a structure caused by fluid pressure, and the transfer of heat from a structure with the heat transfer coefficient. Fig. 1 shows the launch menu of Particleworks in ANSYS Workbench and Fig.2 shows the simulation flow from the liquid flow simulation in Particleworks to the heat transfer simulation in ANSYS.

Particleworks can also be integrated with ANSYS Mechanical for calculating e-drives and the cooling of internal combustion engines. In this case, the information about heat transfer and cooling from the Particleworks simulation can be automatically and seamlessly transferred to ANSYS Mechanical to take into account the efficiency of the oil cooling. ANSYS Mechanical will use the boundary conditions from Particleworks to accurately predict the temperature and stress of the e-drive or piston. 

In addition, Particleworks can transfer the mechanical pressure distributions during a transient process, such as the pressure produced by the sloshing of fuel or any other liquid in a tank, or the forces produced by water, mud or snow on the bumper of car, to ANSYS Mechanical. In this case, the force history or time-dependent pressure distribution on the structure is mapped from the Particleworks’ CFD simulation to the mechanical analysis to design and verify the structural resistance under dynamic loads.

Starting Monday, July 1, the Prometech Software Osaka Branch will be relocated to the address stated below.

Thank you for your continuous support.

 [New Address]

　SYNTH, Dojima Axis Bldg 4F, 2-2-28 Dojimahama, Kita-ku, Osaka 530-0004, Japan

　TEL: +81(0)6-6123-7930

　Opening: Monday, July 1, 2019

Prometech Software Co., Ltd. confirmed its board members during the General Meeting of Shareholders held on June 27, 2019.

Prometech Software, Inc. (President: Toshimitsu Fujisawa, Head Office: Tokyo, hereinafter Prometech) has joined the SOLIDWORKS Partner Program.
 
Particleworks has long been established as a leading CFD software in use by companies to enable design engineers to easily and effectively perform trial & error design studies. Particleworks for SOLIDWORKS is a frontloading CFD Software that allows the user to perform all operations from within the SOLIDWORKS environment. It includes functions needed for fluid phenomena that are highly demanded at design sites but that are difficult to reproduce with conventional grid methods (e.g. splashing, mixing and spraying).
 
Prometech released Particleworks for SOLIDWORKS in Jan 2019. This is a newly developed entry version of the fluid simulation software Particleworks as an add-in tool for SOLIDWORKS®, based on Prometech's particle method (Moving Particle Simulation).
 
“By becoming accredited as a SOLIDWORKS® Partner Program, we will strengthen our collaboration with  partner companies and continuously provide customers with higher quality functions and services.” Says Prometech President Toshimitsu Fujisawa.

Dear Customers,
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Thank you for your continued support.

Our User Support Service will be unavailable from Saturday April 27 to Monday May 6, 2019 due to a sequence of national holidays.

We will reply to all inquiries on Tuesday May 7, 2019. We apologize sincerely for any inconvenience we may cause.

Prometech Software, Inc (CEO: Toshimitsu Fujisawa, headquarters Tokyo Bunkyo Ward, hereafter Prometech) proudly announces that the “DWANGO CG Research” department of DWANGO Co., Ltd (CEO: Takeshi Natsuno, headquarters Tokyo Chuo Ward) will be transferred to Prometech and rebranded as “Prometech CG Research”. Simultaneously Prometech will continue to support the research activities of Tomoyuki Nishita, world leading Computer Graphics (CG) researcher and professor emeritus of The University of Tokyo.

Tomoyuki Nishita is the only researcher in Asia to have received the Steven A. Coons Award, often referred to as the Nobel Prize for Computer Graphics. Nishita developed the Radiosity Method, a core technology that is now used in all CG-based works and video games today. Reflecting on his broad and rich experience, he actively continues his research today. Through its vision of Computational Reality – the creation of a better society through computational science -, Prometech has continuously develops new technologies with an emphasis on Simulation in the fields of CG and AI, i.a. Professor Emeritus Nishita of The University of Tokyo shall lead the “Prometech CG Research” department and actively research in the field of Computer Graphics and promote and develop new contents and services.
Based on our rich experience, we will continue our energetic research activities.

Name of department: Prometech CG Research
Head of department: Tomoyuki Nishita
Date of establishment: April 1, 2019.
Fields of research: Computer Graphics, visualization and illumination simulations of natural objects & phenomena, i.a.
Address: Hongo Dai-ichi bldg. 8F, 34-3, Hongo 3-Chome, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo.
Website: https://www.prometech.co.jp/cgresearch.html

Tomoyuki Nishita (born in 1949 in Hiroshima, Japan) is a professor at The University of Tokyo since 1998 (became professor emeritus after his retirement in March 2013). He started his research in the field of Computer graphics in 1970. His research includes hidden line and surface removal, and soft shadows. He developed the Radiosity Method, a method which realistically calculates light reflections through interreflections. Nishita received the Steven A. Coons Award from the ACM SIGGRAPH in 2005, and the CG-Japan Award from NICOGRAPH in 2006. In 2006, the Institute of Image Electronics Engineers of Japan established the Nishita Award, which is given to the authors of excellent CG-related papers. He has been advising Prometech on business operations as a technical adviser since 2005.

Prometech Software, Inc. (CEO: Toshimitsu Fujisawa, HQ: Tokyo. Hereafter Prometech) proudly announces that Particleworks version 6.2, the meshless liquid fluid simulation software based on the Moving Particle Simulation (MPS) method, and Granuleworks version 1.1, the granular simulation software based on the Discrete Element Method (DEM) is released on January 18, 2019.

Particleworks is a liquid flow simulation software based on MPS (Moving Particle Simulation), one of the particle methods. This innovative meshless calculation method where fluids are shown as a gathering of particles allows for stable and highly-accurate analysis of free surface flow. Particleworks is very effective when it comes to simulations of oil behavior in powertrains, engine oil cooling, splashing of water around the vehicle, mixing of chemicals and resin. Its meshless technology and intuitive interface contributes to more effective product development and design optimization. In both Japan and around the world, Particleworks is implemented in a broad variety of industries including automotive, electronics, chemical, medical, food, and consumer goods. 

Granuleworks is a granule materials simulation software based on Distinct Element Method (DEM). Granuleworks is applied to a broad variety of powder processing and powder-based manufacturing processes, such as foods, medicines, chemicals, conveying equipment and electronics. It can be used for designing and improving powder equipment because of its straightforward analyses of powder phenomena such as mixing, conveying, filling and compaction.

Coupling with elastic bodies of the Multi Body Dynamics Simulation Software RecurDyn
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Particleworks6.2 and Granuleworks1.1 enable to perform simulations using RecurDyn bidirectional coupled analysis with elastic bodies as well as rigid bodies. Large deformation calculations using R-Flex (linear elastic bodies) and F-Flex (nonlinear elastic bodies) can be reflected in real-time to polygon wall in Particleworks and Granuleworks. Simultaneously, RecurDyn calculates elastic deformation, dynamic stress and strain under fluid force calculated by Particleworks and Granuleworks.

Mixing Degree Evaluation
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Powder and granular materials are segregated due to various characteristics, such as their particle size, their surface roughness and their particle shapes. There have been many studies based on statistics of mixed state analyses. However, due to statistical errors, it was impossible to correspond to local mixed states or to the mixed states of micro-components. Particleworks and Granuleworks solve this problem by using an evaluation system for mixing degrees based on entropy. Analyzing the degree of mixing according to arbitrary spatial resolution becomes possible because this method does not include statistical errors. This results in the wide potential of applications besides mixing equipment.

NVIDIA CUDA9.1 Support
Each Particleworks and Granuleworks version update renews the solvers and are optimized for the latest CPU & GPU architecture.
The latest Particleworks 6.2 and Granuleworks 1.1 support NVIDIA’s Volta generation’s CUDA9.1 GPU platform. Volta is today’s most powerful GPU architecture developed as a computing engine for computational science and data science. This significantly boosts Particleworks & Granuleworks analysis performance and allows users to perform large-scale simulations of up to tens of millions of particles.

SDEM
SDEM (Scalable DEM) is a new coarse graining technology for the discrete element method developed by Prometech. It is commonly known that stress networks are constructed within granular materials. This new technology is a theoretical construction based on the stress networks’ characteristics. This technology can be applied to the Gravital Control System (the system where the contact between the particles is most dominant), and makes difficult high coarse DEM-based simulations possible.

■ Pricing:  contact us for pricing details.

Prometech Software, Inc. (President: Toshimitsu Fujisawa, Head Office: Tokyo, hereinafter Prometech) has added Particleworks for SOLIDWORKS to its product line. Particleworks for SOLIDWORKS is a newly developed entry version of the fluid simulation software Particleworks based on Prometech's particle method (MPS method: Moving Particle Simulation), as an add-in tool for SOLIDWORKS®. Particleworks for SOLIDWORKS is a frontloading CFD Software that allows the user to perform all operations in the SOLIDWORKS environment, which will result in that more design engineers can easily and effectively perform trial & error design studies. It includes functions needed for fluid phenomenon that are highly demanded at the design sites but that are difficult to reproduce with the conventional grid method, such as splashing, mixing and spraying.

3D CAD add-in
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Processes of simulation condition setting, calculations and visualization for fluid simulation by use of particle method can be set in the SOLIDWORKS environment. The upstream design process enables the immediate execution of parameter studies on multiple design patterns to get a grasp of various cases of fluid phenomena. This process allows the user to verify design ideas and to tackle potential risks, which contribute to a more advanced and more efficient product design.

Analysis Results by Minimal Input and Simple Operation
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The operation required by the user is kept to a minimum in order to facilitate designs for fluid phenomena during the planning and design stage. The operation procedures are as follows: First, the user creates a simulation in SOLIDWORKS (fluid area, polygon wall, inflow port, probe area) and defines parts’ movements. Then, by clicking the Particleworks for SOLIDWORKS icon, Particleworks for SOLIDWORKS menus appear in which the user defines the simulation area and the target parts, the material property values and inlets, the simulation parameters and the job environment. After the calculation is executed, the user can output the simulation results to a color map display, a stream line display, a particle flow trace display, a cross section display, an animation or a graph and many more to check in SOLIDWORKS.

Typical Fluid Applications
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Particleworks for SOLIDWORKS is the entry version of particle method simulation software, Particleworks. It covers highly needed analysis areas such as splashing, mixing and spraying. It can be used in various fields such as tank oil sloshing, gear oil lubrication, mixing process of medicine, mixing of foods, emulsification of cosmetics, nozzle jets.

Limitations compared to Particleworks, the Particle-based Simulation Software
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Since it is an entry version of Particleworks, the number of particles is set to 500,000 particles. The necessary input parameters on the SOLIDWORKS GUI are carefully selected for the designers’ easy. Number of cores, GPU usage, parallel calculations, floating environments, customizable environments, the coupling simulation with other software, among others are not supported.

Price: Contact us for pricing details.

Prometech Software, Inc. (Head office: Tokyo, CEO: Fujisawa Toshimitsu, hereafter Prometech) and ANSYS, Inc. (Head office: Canonsburg, PA, President and CEO: Ajei Gopal, hereafter ANSYS) jointly announced their collaboration to bring more wide-ranging multiphysics simulation solutions to the market, during the Prometech Simulation Conference.

The partnership enables users to perform multiphysics fluid phenomena calculations with Particleworks, while realizing improved interactive environments with ANSYS products.

Prometech provides simulation solutions for large free surface flow and splashing/spraying flow with its unique mesh-free particle method known as the MPS (Moving Particle Simulation) Method. The coupling between Particleworks and ANSYS structural simulation solutions empower users to simulate complex multi-physics phenomena, whereas the coupling of Particleworks with ANSYS fluid simulation solution allows users to simulate realistic air-liquid phenomena.

Embedding Particleworks in the ANSYS® Workbench™ environment enables key features, such as the calculation of structure deformation caused by fluid pressure and structure heat transfer by use of the heat transfer coefficient.

More information: www.ansys.com/about-ansys/partner-ecosystem/software-partners/prometech