Benchmarking COMSOL Multiphysics
Ed Fontes, COMSOL AB
COMSOL continues to push the curve in delivering the utmost performance and accuracy in solving multiphysics problems. The most recent release, version 3.4, brought support for multicore computers and introduced fast segregated solvers. Users praise the boost in simulation speed, and a new benchmark study by Dr. Darrell W. Pepper of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Dr. Xiuling Wang of Purdue University-Calumet seems to indicate that users have good reasons for their praise.
A MEMS actuator is one out of four benchmark problems studied in the report Benchmarking COMSOL Multiphysics 3.4 by Dr. Wang and Dr. Pepper.
The report, Benchmarking COMSOL Multiphysics 3.4, summarizes the results of Dr. Pepper’s and Dr. Wang’s recently concluded benchmark project in which they compared COMSOL Multiphysics 3.4 to five leading, widely deployed physics applications. “The purpose of this benchmarking project,” write Dr. Wang and Dr. Pepper, “was to solve four 3D standard benchmark problems using COMSOL Multiphysics 3.4 as well as other well-known commercial packages in the related areas and to compare performances in the CPU time and memory consumption required to reach a given accuracy in the modeling results.”
Dr. Pepper and Dr. Wang determined the selection of the benchmark problems and conducted the benchmark tests at the Nevada Center for Advanced Computational Methods. The four benchmark tests simulated fluid-structure interaction (FSI), fully coupled electronic current conduction with thermal and structural analysis, electromagnetic wave propagation, and the magnetic fields around and inside a rotating electric generator.
The 46-page Benchmarking COMSOL Multiphysics 3.4 provides complete descriptions of all benchmark problem definitions as well as the testing criteria, environment, and individual test methodologies. Scientific literature and experimental data are well annotated and compared with simulation results whenever possible. Simulation results include extensive comparison tables as well as a rich complement of full-color charts and screens shots for each benchmark test.
To download a free copy of Benchmarking COMSOL Multiphysics 3.4 by Dr. Darrell W. Pepper and Dr. Xiuling Wang, go to: femcodes.ncsee.edu