When using software tools to analyse and replace diseased bone or predicting friction and flow around a swimsuit in the pursuit of speed, engineers are working with the complex behaviour of matter, where one set of variables depends directly on another.

The key to such calculations is to solve the partial differential equations that describe the situations and the way they react in their environment.

Until now, the finite element method has been used to solve these equations. Now a new method is creating a computational environment where the equations for any physical phenomena can be accessed and fully coupled without limitation, and applied to the geometry of the system's components.

Called multiphysics simulation, this makes it possible to run more 'what-if' analyses while building fewer physical prototypes. This ability to solve the fully coupled set of equations in a single, fast simulation is the real breakthrough.

Tim Morris, chief executive of independent FEA industry body NAFEMS, said: 'We are witnessing a surge of interest in multiphysics modelling within our membership — it has become one of the hot topics.'

Airbus, for example, used the Multiphysics program from Comsol, the computer solutions expert, to simulate friction stir welding (FSW). In this process, a cylindrical tool made up of a shoulder and a threaded pin is spun and inserted into the joint between two pieces of metal. The rotating shoulder and pin generate heat, but not enough to melt the metal.

Instead, the softened, plasticised metal forms a solid phase made up of a fine-grained material with no entrapped oxides or gas porosity. The crushing, stirring and forging action produces a joint with a finer microstructure than the parent material and with twice the strength. The process can even join dissimilar aluminum alloys.

Airbus funded several investigations into the study of FSW. 'One of the first results was a research project that created a mathematical model, allowing Airbus engineers to look "inside" a weld to examine temperature distributions and changes in microstructures,' said Paul Colegrove, a lecturer in welding engineering at Cranfield University.

Comsol's Multiphysics model couples a 3D thermal analysis for calculating heat flow with a 2D axisymmetric swirl flow simulation. This coupling, in turn, allows both the flow and heat generation to be calculated.

The thermal analysis calculates the 3D temperature field from the heat flux imposed at the tool surface. It captures the effect of the tool movement, the thermal boundary conditions and the thermal properties of the material being welded. The model then projects the temperature distribution near the tool surface from the 3D boundary to the domain in the 2D model.

US researchers at Medrad Innovations Group, led by John Kalafut, used multiphysics modelling to investigate the injection of non-Newtonian fluids (in which viscosity changes with the applied strain strain, such as non-drip paint or blood) with high shear-rates through thin syringes.

This work produced a particularly novel device called the Medrad Vanguard Dx Angiographic Catheter. The diffusion tip's nozzle design allows for a more uniform distribution of injected contrast materials (fluids that enhance the visibility of bodily objects during medical imaging) compared with a traditional end-hole catheter.

One problem with traditional end-hole catheters is that they tend to cause the contrast material to stream from the exit hole at high velocities, potentially endangering blood vessel walls. The Vanguard catheter reduces the reaction forces associated with contrast material streaming from the nozzle and therefore minimises the likelihood of contact and damage to the blood vessel walls.

A crucial feature of the catheter was the ideal configuration of holes or slits around the tip to optimise fluid delivery while preventing structural deflection. Kalafut's team used Comsol Multiphysics to couple forces from laminar flow with a stress-strain analysis, then modelled the fluid-structure interaction occurring in the catheters with various hole configurations, geometries and flow patterns.

Altair has also been making strides in biomedical engineering — the Shiley Centre for Orthopaedic Research and Education (SCORE) at Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, California, is using Altair HyperWorks software tools to analyse shoulder implants.

'We take the surface of the bone as the equivalent of CAD geometry,' said Dr Darryl D'Lima, director of SCORE's orthopaedic research laboratory. 'Then we create a solid mesh using HyperMesh and send it back to the CT scan software Mimics. Based on the scan, Mimics assigns material properties on an element-by-element basis and exports the file back to HyperMesh. We then have a high-fidelity surface with material properties that is unique to the patient.'

Using HyperMesh, the team can remove the diseased bone from the model of the patient's shoulder and replace it with an implant, including the cement that fixes it in position. 'As far as I know,' said D'Lima, 'HyperMesh is the only program that allows us to mesh complex organic bone surfaces and the CAD surfaces of the implant. HyperMesh does all the pre- and post-processing. It's the glue between Mimics and our stress-analysis solver.'

Similar techniques were used by Speedo to design its LZR Racer swimsuit. The location of various panels of a special 'slippery' material was decided on by using ANSYS Fluent CFD software. The software's predictions of friction and flow around the swimmer helped Speedo identify 'drag hot spots' that could benefit from the panels of the new material.

Speedo's CFD work and physical testing focused on passive drag — the drag produced by a swimmer's body while it is held in a streamlined position, which the swimmer typically assumes for up to 15m after the initial dive or turn.

This work is important, and there are opportunities to do even more with CFD in the future to analyse a swimmer throughout a race. Jim Cashman, ANSYS president and chief executive, said the success of examining passive drag sets the stage for more complex multiphysics simulations as the swimsuits continue to evolve. 'For example, we could look at the hydrodynamic pressure on the swimmer's body moving through the water in conjunction with the structural aspects of the suit,' he said.

Similar technology helped students at Sussex County Technical School in Sparta, New Jersey, win first prize for innovation and third place in best overall performance among the 26 human-powered submarines at the 9th International Submarine Races.

Sussex used the CFdesign software from Blue Ridge Numerics to optimise the overall configuration of its hull shape and propeller; the school needed a tool that would assess fluid flow early in the design process, so changes could be made quickly. 'We were able to use CFdesign to do iterations that helped us determine the amount of twist needed in the propeller blade and reduce overall drag,' said instructor and project manager Chris Land. 'Using CFdesign gave us a lot more confidence, especially since we didn't have the luxury of testing with physical prototypes.'

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SOUTHPOINTE, Pa., May 2, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- ANSYS, Inc. (Nasdaq:ANSS) today announced that the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission have granted early termination of the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) waiting period for ANSYS' proposed acquisition of Ansoft Corporation (Nasdaq:ANST). ANSYS currently expects to close the acquisition in the second quarter of 2008.

As previously announced, ANSYS and Ansoft have entered into a definitive merger agreement in which ANSYS will acquire Ansoft for a purchase price of approximately $832 million in a mix of cash and ANSYS common stock. Consummation of the transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions, including the approval of the Ansoft stockholders.

"We are very pleased that we have received notice of early termination and look forward to closing the transaction and implementing our plan," said Jim Cashman, president and CEO of ANSYS, Inc. "The combination of ANSYS and Ansoft will create substantial benefits for our global customers, employees, partners and stockholders, through continued investment and development of innovative products and services, and our commitment to world-class execution."

"The ANSYS portfolio of engineering simulation technologies, when combined with Ansoft, will enhance our ability to deliver integration, functionality and interoperability to a broad set of customers and industries," said Nicholas Csendes, president and chief executive officer of Ansoft.

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If you're a fan of German engineering in your car, chances are you'll love it in your brain scan.

Local hospitals are trying to cross-pollinate health care with technologies that have roots in the automotive and aerospace industries. The hope is that, with a medical twist, high-tech navigation systems, pattern recognition software and top-of-the-line robots can revolutionize the treatment of everything from irregular heartbeats to lung cancer.

St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital says it is the first in the world to treat stroke patients with the help of a robotic arm that has its origins in systems created by Munich-based Siemens AG for precision welding on the assembly lines of BMW and Mercedes-Benz.

The medical robot, dubbed Artis zeego and manufactured by Siemens Medical Solutions, is coupled with a CT scanner and X-ray. It can tilt, turn and spin at virtually infinite angles, capturing detailed images that track blood flow.

Imaging is usually limited, requiring a lot of time and guesswork to get the right picture so doctors can tell what's going on inside an artery. But this robot is made with a memory for pinpointing locations, allowing it to snap back almost instantly to an exact spot should the doctor need to take a second look.

Tracing a tiny bubble deep in the brain only a few millimeters long is an arduous business. In some cases mere seconds matter and older equipment becomes a time-drag, says Dr. Michel Mawad, the director of Neurovascular Radiology at St. Luke's who is testing out the Artis zeego. Mawad is also a member of Siemens' medical advisory board.

''This takes the human error out. You can reproduce the exact angle every time," he says. ''We're being very careful. We're going very slow for now, but there's tremendous potential for speed here."

Helps in difficult cases

St. Luke's Vice President Mike Reno says the hospital invested $3.5 million in the machine and built a new suite for it because it allows doctors to tackle the most complex cases.

"Even though we've already hit the best outcomes for stroke in Texas, we're not settling for that. This allows us to do the most difficult patients," he says.

At The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, physicist Christof Karmonik is testing aerodynamics software used to build race cars to try to predict blood flows through potentially deadly aneurysms.

Fluids and air flow in similar ways, Karmonik says. So Methodist is using a program created by Pittsburgh-based Ansys to project the velocity and sheer of blood as it moves toward and through a bulging vessel. The goal: find alternate treatment options based on how fast the blood is traveling and how it reacts when encountering a hard surface, such as the wall of an artery.

''We want to understand how high and low pressure might result in different treatments. We want to understand why, even once aneurysms are closed off, they sometimes grow back," Karmonik says.

"People have started applying this to patient-specific images. It's not an abstract model of the geometry of an aneurysm any more."

Last month, Methodist cardiologist Dr. Miguel Valderrabano began using triangulation similar to that employed by global positioning satellite navigation devices to track heart catheters in his patients suffering from atrial fibrillation, a type of heart arrhythmia that puts people at risk for blood clots.

Instead of using satellites to zero in on the catheter, the Sensei Robotic Catheter uses three magnets to triangulate and locate the catheter, which is fitted with a magnetic tip. The device also measures electrical impedance on three axes.

In the past, physicians had to insert catheters manually and hold them in place while rotating and coercing them up the vessel from the groin to the heart, taking X-rays along the way to track progress.

"It becomes very tricky to know where you are by looking at X-rays," Valderrabano says, adding the near constant radiation is bad for the doctors who do this all day long wearing a heavy lead apron. The new system reduces doctors' and patients' exposure to X-rays.

Valderrabano sits across the room from the patient with an irregular heartbeat. At a computer console with 10 monitors displaying the 3-D body-mapping system, he uses a joystick to drive the catheter to the heart.

The catheter is equipped to measure resistance four times per second as it proceeds so it won't puncture the vessel.

Valderrabano says the technology does not replace judgment or training.

"But this takes the guesswork out of it," he said. "You know what you're doing all the time and it's harder to make mistakes."

Reducing waiting time

The system is part of a "see and treat" movement in medicine that often saves patients from multiple procedures or waiting months to undergo a separate surgery after an initial diagnosis is made.

Stephen Wong, an engineer who is not a physician, chairs medical physics efforts at The Methodist Hospital Research Institute. He says see-and-treat procedures for small-scale lung cancer is coming soon thanks to GPS-like technology.

GPS navigation systems use a preloaded street map and show one variable — the car — moving through it. In Wong's world, a snapshot of the body is the preloaded map and a needle is the car.

Fiber optic wire can be pushed down the needle into the tumor to provide images to the physicians, then a special dye is injected. "If it lights up, it's cancer," Wong says.

With existing methods the process from initial screening to surgery can take three to four months.

But with the method Wong is interested in, an electrical wire could be inserted through the diagnostic needle to burn away the cancer. Tests on animals have been successful, Wong said, adding human subjects won't be far behind.

Wong is also directing a team of researchers that is using pattern recognition software to sift through millions of images of millions of cells in the hopes of finding the origins of cancer.

Wong says it may be possible to predict cancer using the same kind of computer algorithms that help track objects in space.

In theory, the same approach could track treatment, with doctors monitoring a patient's cells to determine if the cancerous ones were dying off or continuing to proliferate.

"This is about early detection and treatment. This is about prevention," Wong says. ''We can apply this to a population of millions or take it down to you — just you. You couldn't think of this even two years ago."

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Swimmers Wearing Speedo LZR RACER Suit Break 35 World Records, Including 17 of 18 at the FINA World Swimming Championships (25m)

SOUTHPOINTE, Pa., April 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ANSYS, Inc. (Nasdaq: ANSS), a global innovator of simulation software and technologies designed to optimize product development processes, today announced that 35 swimming world records have already been broken by athletes wearing a new high-performance swimsuit designed using engineering simulation software from ANSYS. The Speedo(R) LZR RACER(R) suit, developed for elite swimmers and launched in February this year, has been proven in testing to optimize swimmer performance better than any suit to date. Seventeen out of 18 world records were broken at last week's FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) alone, suggesting the Speedo LZR RACER suit will make the headlines at the Beijing games.

Software from ANSYS played a critical role in the development of the suit. The technology was used to predict fluid flows around the body of an elite swimmer in the outstretched glide position (assumed immediately after the initial dive and following each lap's turn off the pool wall) to identify areas where drag, and its slowing effect, is likely to occur. In addition, the simulation analysis guided placement of specially designed drag-reducing Speedo LZR RACER panels to minimize this negative effect. Simulations then were run to confirm the Speedo LZR RACER suit was effective in reducing drag and enabling athletes wearing the suit to swim faster than ever before.

"While never forgetting the endless dedication and spirit of world-class athletes who continually hit new heights, we are thrilled with the success to date of the Speedo LZR RACER suit. This is clear evidence of the power of applying advanced engineering simulation technology to optimize all of the design metrics of a product. The groundbreaking innovation represented by the design of the Speedo LZR RACER suit could not have been achieved without the depth and breadth of technology from ANSYS," said Jim Cashman, president and CEO of ANSYS, Inc. "From the ANSYS perspective, we're finding that there really are no barriers to the potential applications and industries in which our software can be crucial to competitive advantage."

"Speedo is a world-class brand dedicated to continual innovation and working with the best, which makes ANSYS a perfect partner for us. The use of ANSYS software was an integral part of our design and development process, which, alongside with our other key partners, resulted in the development of the world's fastest swimsuit, the Speedo LZR RACER," said Jason Rance, head of Speedo's Aqualab research and development group.

ANSYS worked with Dr. Herve Morvan of Nottingham University and Optimal Solutions in conducting the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) research used to develop the Speedo LZR RACER suit. Speedo has long been recognized as the world's leading swimwear brand.

About Speedo

Synonymous with swimwear, the iconic brand celebrates 80 years of dominance creating revolutionary new technologies, designs and innovations. In the 1920s Speedo(R) made history with the Racerback: the world's first non-wool suit. In 2008 Speedo redefines swimwear again with Fastskin(R) LZR RACER(R) -- the fastest and most technologically advanced swimsuit ever created; meanwhile designer collaborations with Comme des Garcons put Speedo at the cutting edge of design. As the world's leading swimwear brand, Speedo is passionate about life in and around the water, supporting swimming from beginners through to elite level, including the phenomenal Michael Phelps. Speedo is owned by Pentland Brands and distributed in over 170 countries around the world; to find out more visit: www.speedo.com. SPEEDO, the ARROW device, LZR PULSE and LZR RACER are registered trade marks of Speedo Holdings B.V. The LZR RACER suit has worldwide design rights and patents pending.

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SOUTHPOINTE, Pa., April 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ANSYS, Inc. (Nasdaq: ANSS), a global innovator of simulation software and technologies designed to optimize product development processes, today announced that it has been ranked fifth on the CIOZone(TM) list of 40 Fastest-Growing Big Software Vendors. Part of its Surging 60 compilation, the listing provides ready information for chief information officers to use in making IT business decisions. ANSYS was one of only two engineering simulation software companies that made the list of 40 Fastest-Growing Big Software Vendors.

According to the CIOZone analysis, the revenue of public U.S. software companies jumped 24 percent in 2007, compared to 2006, while the ANSYS sales growth in that same period was 45.8 percent and the Company's profit change from 2006 to 2007 was 485.7 percent.

CIOZone compiled its Fastest-Growing Big Software Vendors list based on 2007 revenue and profit of publicly held software companies in the United States. It identified Security Industry Codes relevant to software, eliminated companies that were not purely software-related, and limited the list to companies that started the year with more than $150 million in sales "to make sure the list wasn't skewed toward very small companies that most CIOs would be unlikely to find themselves doing business with," the report said. Finally, the listing compared sales growth, revenue, net profit and profit change in calendar year 2007.

"Being listed on the CIOZone software list is an honor," said Jim Cashman, president and CEO of ANSYS, Inc. "It exemplifies our investment in driving technology to new levels, which is being rewarded by strong customer adoption. Many years ago, we saw simulation as the key to predicting how products in development would behave in a real-world environment. We remain committed to invest in the future of our advanced simulation solutions and to further expand our integrated portfolio, which continues to fuel our growth across various diverse industries and geographies."

The Surging 60 also included a list of the 20 Fastest-Growing Small Software Vendors, which consisted of companies that began the year with between $50 and $150 million in revenue. On March 31, 2008, ANSYS announced the proposed acquisition and signing of a definitive agreement for the purchase of Ansoft Corporation, which was named to CIOZone's small vendors' list.

About CIOZone

CIOZone (http://www.ciozone.com) is the original ProSocial(TM) Network for IT Leadership. It is an online, interactive meeting place for high-level chief information officers and IT professionals in which open discussions can freely take place and members are encouraged to share experiential learning with their peers. CIOZone melds expert content, industry information, research and analysis together with user-generated content inside a community, brought and held together through the stewardship of trusted content providers. CIOZone is a Professional Social Networks, Inc.(TM) company. (http://www.professionalsocialnetworks.com).

Professional Social Networks Inc., the Professional Social Networks Inc. logo, CIOZone, the CIOZone logo and ProSocial are registered trademarks of Professional Social Networks, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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