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The development of a device meant to assist or completely replace the functioning of the heart is undeniably complex. This design process involves immense challenges, from supplying power to the device to ensuring it does not interfere with normal biological functioning. Researchers at St. Jude Medical use multiphysics simulation to engineer LVADs, Left Ventricular Assist Devices, in an ongoing effort to improve the outlook and quality of life of patients with heart failure. The condition typically begins with the left side of the heart, as the left ventricle is responsible for pumping oxygen-rich blood throughout the body, a greater distance than the right ventricle, which pumps blood through the lungs. Often, in patients with a poorly functioning left ventricle, an LVAD can provide mechanical circulatory support. The ventricle assist device is one of the most complex machines ever implanted in a human being. An LVAD must circulate the entire human blood stream and support life, as well as be compatible with the internal environment of the human body. Thoratec, now part of St. Jude Medical, brought LVADs to a wide market in 2010, after years of clinical trials.

Look at any industry today, from automotive design to consumer electronics, and you will find a common thread that binds them together: the demand for more innovative technology. The latest and greatest technologies are continuously surpassed by even more complex and intricate devices that offer advanced features and functionality. Numerical simulation tools are a viable solution to the challenge of creating more elaborate devices quickly, delivering results with real-world accuracy without the need for building prototypes for each design modification. Some organizations, however, may not have the resources to bring a simulation expert on board to help create and modify models. This is where simulation applications come in. These customized user interfaces are built around numerical simulations of physics-based systems and allow an end user to run multiphysics analyses set up for them by simulation specialists.

BLOCK Transformatoren-Elektronik faced increasing difficulty in designing inductors and transformers with aging simulation software. The company needed to reduce the number of prototypes created before finalizing a design to save costs and improve services. The challenge was to meet precise specifications concerning working frequencies, product sizes and weights, electrical power losses, electrical insulation, and varying environmental conditions. Additionally, the equipment needed to have product lifetimes of 30 years. The company sought a solution that would allow them to quickly and accurately improve designs while reducing the number of physical prototypes.

California-based LLNL oversees the National Ignition Facility (NIF), home to the world’s largest and most energetic laser. The giant machine—with 192 separate beams and 40,000 optics that focus, reflect, and guide those beams— can amplify emitted laser-pulse energy by as much as ten billion times and direct it towards a target about the size of a pencil eraser. The laser produces temperatures, pressures, and densities that are similar to those found in the cores of stars, supernovae, and large planets. Astrophysics and nuclear researchers use the giant laser to better understand the universe, utilizing such technologies as inertial confinement fusion (ICF), where hydrogen fuel is heated and compressed to the point where nuclear fusion reactions take place. However, repeated use of this powerful laser can damage the optics within the system. “The optics can be quite expensive,” says Matthews. “The high-power laser light generated by the NIF can damage some of the fused silica optics, creating little pits in the surface—similar to the ding you get when a rock hits your car’s windshield. We do everything we can to repair and recycle the damaged ones.” An example of two damaged optic surfaces before and after repair is shown in Figure 1.

The modernization of the electrical grid to a 'smart grid' involves not only IT and embedded systems but also the critical 'nuts and bolts' components like transformers, cable joints, terminations, bushings, and fault current limiters (FCLs). These components are essential for the grid's reliability and efficiency. The challenge lies in engineering these parts to handle increased voltages and power ratings while minimizing size and cost. Additionally, the adoption of superconducting fault current limiters (SFCLs) faces technological and business hurdles, including the high cost of cooling and the complexity of integrating these devices into the grid.

The heating and cooling of buildings account for nearly 50 percent of energy consumption in Europe, prompting researchers to seek alternatives to conventional technologies. One promising solution is adsorption-based heating and cooling systems driven by heat rather than electricity. This technology can utilize heat from solar collectors, waste heat from industrial facilities, or combined heat and power units, significantly reducing electricity consumption and CO2 emissions. However, the development of these systems is complex due to their discontinuous operating cycles, varying peak energy fluxes, and the dynamic behavior determined by complex heat and mass transfer phenomena. To realize their full potential, the technology must become more efficient, compact, and cost-effective.

The challenge addressed by the Application Builder and COMSOL Server™ is the complexity and detail-oriented nature of traditional modeling tools. These tools often require significant expertise to operate, making it difficult for non-experts to interact with and utilize the models effectively. The need for a more intuitive and user-friendly interface that can present modeling results in real-time and be used in various scenarios such as lectures, demonstrations, and product simulations is evident. Additionally, there is a demand for a solution that allows models to be used as standalone applications or web resources, thereby broadening their accessibility and usability.

Rick Beyerle, a senior scientist at GrafTech's Advanced Energy Technologies (AET) subsidiary, identified a significant challenge in the sales process of their carbon and graphite products. The sales team needed to build trust with prospective customers, often requiring a 'proof of concept' to establish credibility. However, creating these proofs of concept was resource-intensive, requiring Rick and his team to divert R&D resources to modify and rerun validated models for each customer's specific configuration. The sales team, untrained in numerical modeling, found it difficult to navigate the complex models, which featured hundreds of parameters and boundary conditions. This situation led to inefficiencies and delays, as the application engineers were instructed to prioritize live tests over time-consuming simulations.

In the electronics and computer hardware industry, optimizing the design of high-speed interconnects in printed circuit boards (PCBs) is a significant challenge. As electronic devices become smaller, the size and spacing of package interconnects must be scaled down, making computational design optimization more time-consuming. Higher frequency interconnects consume more power, and the geometry and materials of these interconnects need to be redesigned to minimize power consumption and prevent signal loss. This is particularly crucial for PCBs, which are used in a wide range of electronic devices. Full-wave electromagnetic simulation is necessary to model signal propagation in these interconnects, but solving the complete set of Maxwell’s equations without simplifying assumptions is computationally intensive. This complexity is compounded by the need to account for non-negligible electromagnetic couplings and impedance mismatch in complex 3D structures, which can cause crosstalk and reflection, compromising signal integrity.

The challenge for Brüel & Kjær is to design industrial and measurement-grade microphones and transducers with a known and consistent error range, even over extended periods. The company must meet diverse industry sound and vibration challenges, from traffic and airport noise to car engine vibration, wind turbine noise, and production quality control. This requires designing microphones and accelerometers that adhere to various measurement standards. The goal is to achieve high precision and accuracy in their devices, which is critical for their customers, including major companies like Airbus, Boeing, Ferrari, Bosch, and NASA.

Dynamic, textural, and symbolic; whether they ambitiously defy gravity or grow organically from the landscape, iconic buildings frequently involve complex façades. Designed not only to protect, they also regulate variables such as thermal and visual comfort. From solar studies that allow optimization of the shading design in order to reduce cooling loads and maximize visual comfort, to the way in which fixing brackets for rainscreen cladding affect the integrity of the insulation, there are numerous challenges that can be resolved with the help of simulation.

Close metabolic control through glucose monitoring is essential for persons with diabetes to maintain good health and avoid medical complications. However, the chemical reactions on the sensing strips used in glucose monitors are sensitive to environmental conditions and chemical interferences. Sensors are shipped worldwide, stored under uncertain conditions, and used by individuals with varying levels of knowledge and experience. Robust design is crucial for enabling sensors to survive these environments, deliver accurate results, and detect conditions that would cause errors. Multiphysics simulation is now used alongside experiments and calculations, enabling scientists to understand the chemical, electrical, and biological phenomena interacting in these systems so they can optimize their design and measurement methods.

Cypress Semiconductor faced the challenge of ensuring that their touchscreen technologies perform flawlessly under a variety of conditions and applications. This includes smartphones, laptops, automotive environments, industrial applications, and home appliances. Each application requires a different design, and the touchscreens must track finger or stylus positions with high accuracy. The capacitive touchscreens need to determine the touch object's size, location, duration, and movement direction. The engineers needed to create multiple electrostatic simulations for various device geometries and parameters, referred to as a 'design box'.

Corrosion is a significant issue costing billions annually, particularly affecting the transportation industry, including sea, air, and ground transport. The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is addressing this problem through fundamental research in corrosion science. The challenge lies in understanding the complex multiphysics problem of corrosion, especially pitting corrosion, which occurs due to electrochemical reactions and mass transport in an electrolyte solution. The irregular growth of corrosion pits due to the metal microstructure has not been adequately addressed in previous research. The goal is to develop new corrosion-resistant materials by understanding the microstructure-corrosion correlations.

In terms of energy consumption, ovens have the most room for improvement of any appliance in the kitchen, with only 10 to 12 percent of the total energy expended used to heat the food being prepared. This is one of the reasons why Whirlpool Corporation, the world’s largest home appliance manufacturer, is exploring new solutions for enhancing the resource efficiency of their domestic ovens. Using a combination of experimental testing and finite element analysis (FEA), Whirlpool engineers are seeking solutions to improve energy efficiency by exploring new options for materials, manufacturing, and thermal element design. In partnership with the GREENKITCHEN® project, a European initiative that supports the development of energy-efficient home appliances with reduced environmental impact, researchers at Whirlpool R&D (Italy) are studying the energy consumption of their ovens by exploring the heat transfer processes of convection, conduction, and radiation. “Multiphysics analysis allows us to better understand the heat transfer process that occurs within a domestic oven, as well as test innovative strategies for increasing energy efficiency,” says Nelson Garcia-Polanco, Research and Thermal Engineer at Whirlpool R&D working on the GREENKITCHEN® project. “Our goal is to reduce the energy consumption of Whirlpool’s ovens by 20 percent.”

Engineers at ETREMA Products, Inc. face the challenge of designing devices using magnetostrictive materials, which change shape when exposed to a magnetic field. These materials are crucial for the production of transducers, sensors, and other high-powered electrical devices. The unique properties of magnetostrictive materials, such as their ability to mechanically respond to magnetic fields and their characteristic nonlinearity, make designing these devices complex. The challenge is to accurately represent the material properties and complex physics interactions within such devices to facilitate the production of the next generation of smart products.

Observing and analyzing regions in outer space where new stars and planets are born requires extremely sensitive detectors. Radiation and overheating can cause these detectors to fail. Using multiphysics simulation, a team at SRON is developing a calibration source for an imaging spectrometer that can operate with such vulnerable equipment. Heat management takes on a unique role in outer space, especially for cryogenic systems that demand extremely low temperatures in order to detect thermal radiation. This was a challenge faced by the engineering team at SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research when designing the SpicA Far-InfraRed Instrument (SAFARI), an infrared camera that measures the complete far-infrared spectrum for each image pixel. SAFARI will fly aboard the Japanese Space Infrared Telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA). SPICA will look deeper into space than any space telescope has before. Because SAFARI has ultrasensitive detectors, cooled to slightly above absolute zero, it can pick up weaker far-infrared radiation than previous space cameras. Precise on-ground and in-space calibration is crucial to the accuracy of the sensors and the success of the mission. To design and optimize these calibration systems, the team at SRON turned to a COMSOL Multiphysics® simulation as their guide.

The desire to eliminate batteries and power lines is motivating a wide range of research. In the quest for systems that are energy autonomous, the concept of energy harvesting is attracting a great deal of attention. For researchers at Siemens Corporate Technology in Munich, exploring the potential of an energy-harvesting microelectromechanical system (MEMS) generator holds strong appeal. The researchers chose to design a microgenerator for an innovative tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) driven by motion. Yet locating the device within the tire requires that the assembly be extremely robust and able to withstand gravitational accelerations up to 2500 g. Moreover, to avoid tire imbalance it would have to be very light, and in terms of operational life it would need to match that of a tire—a minimum of eight years.

Treating arteries in the heart that have been blocked by plaque is a common challenge for medical professionals. Known as stenosis, this condition restricts blood flow to the heart, resulting in symptoms such as shortness of breath and chest pain. It is sometimes resolved using stents, which are small, mesh-like tubular structures designed to treat blocked arteries. They are usually placed in the coronary artery and expanded with a balloon catheter to keep the artery open. While stents are successful at holding arteries open, an artery can re-narrow because of excessive tissue growth over the stent. This is called restenosis and is the body’s natural healing response, but it can actually impede recovery. Thus, drug-eluting stents were developed to deliver medicine — which acts to reduce cell proliferation and prevent the unwanted growth — into the artery tissue. These contain a coating composed of medicine and a polymer matrix designed to provide a controlled delivery; each strand of the stent mesh is surrounded by this coating. Stent designs have improved dramatically in recent years in an effort to reduce restenosis rates, but much remains unknown regarding the release process.

Laboratory tests, such as hematology analysis, influence up to 70 percent of critical decisions including hospital admittance, discharge, and treatment. The accuracy of these tests is crucial for patient outcomes. HORIBA Medical, a global supplier of medical diagnostic equipment, faced challenges in optimizing their hematology analysis equipment using physical prototypes alone. The complexity of the physical processes involved, such as high fluid velocity, pressure drop, heat transfer, and intense electric fields, made it difficult to achieve accurate measurements. Additionally, factors like particle trajectory and orientation through the micro-aperture system further complicated the accuracy of the impedance measurement system.