The COMSOL conference returns to Boston after a 5-year hiatus. Thanks, COVID.
Once again, I am delighted to be able to cover good products and companies with EngTechnica. Here, we have COMSOL, arguably the first and best multiphysics simulation software. Ansys may claim to have multiphysics. Siemens, too. But both have bolted on the physics they didn’t initially have. For example, Ansys, a structural FEA program from the start, began calling themselves a multiphysics solution after acquiring Fluent, a CFD program. Sure, it was FEA + CFD. But COMSOL was multiphysics from the start. It’s in the name: COMSOL Multiphysics. And they’re still ahead of the pack.
Most of the presentations posted at the conference rely on COMSOL to go across the engineering disciplines, such as one on EV batteries, that involve electronics, chemistry, thermal and mechanical engineering.
COMSOL also distinguishes itself by letting you create apps. Here’s how it works. Suppose you have an oft-occurring situation that demands simulation. Say someone in the field needs to determine how long a truckload of apples can stay fresh. Stay with me here; this actually happened. The apple deterioration can be simulated with COMSOL Multiphysics, believe it or not. But where the simulation needs to happen, at the apple cart, so to speak, it is not practical to have a simulation-savvy engineer be present. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an app for this, to punch in the number of apples and where the apples are to be delivered and have the app do all the rest, have it sense prevailing conditions along the route and give you the number of days you’ve got. All the calculations are done in COMSOL Multiphysics, all of them under the hood. This is the Coldivate app, available in the Apple Store and for Android. Sure, it’s a niche, and there’s no telling how popular this is. Currently, there are no reviews on the Apple Store. But the point is…
You can package up a simulation for any case with an app that can be helpful for anyone, anywhere. COMSOL is to be commended for this. No COMSOL license is required to run the app. COMSOL gets no revenue from this. Their play is like Adobe with PDF. It costs money to create an Acrobat file, but everyone can read Acrobat files for free.
It’s genius. And not just because I attribute genius to those who agree with me.
