Address:
COMSOL, Inc.
1 New England Executive Park, Ste 350
Burlington, MA 01803 USA
Phone: +1 781-273-3322
Fax: +1 781-273-6603
Email: info@comsol.com
Editor Contact:
Bernt Nilsson, VP of Marketing
bernt@comsol.com
Reader Contact:
Bjorn Sjodin, VP of Applications
bjorn@comsol.com
Leading Optimization Codes Integrate into Multiphysics and FEA Environments.
The transmission through a lossless 3-port ferrite circulator requires that identical tuning elements be placed in each arm for impedance matching. In order to find the best material for these elements, the Optimization Lab finds the appropriate operating permittivity.
An inverse model created with the help of the Optimization Lab determines the critical spinning frequency at which a gear separates from its shaft.
Given the model of a semiconductor diode in COMSOL Multiphysics, the multiple-parameter fitting analysis in the Optimization Lab allows the creation of an accurate SPICE model of the diode.
BURLINGTON, MA (October 23, 2006)-The Optimization Lab from COMSOL adds best-in-class optimization codes geared at computationally intensive FEA (finite element analysis) and multiphysics problems. With this tool it is now easy to perform the large-scale optimization of problems in areas ranging from traditional engineering disciplines such as structural mechanics and chemical engineering to emerging technologies such as bioengineering and MEMS. This simulation tool includes powerful optimization solvers based on the highly respected and widely used SNOPT and SQOPT codes developed by Philip Gill from the University of California at San Diego along with Walter Murray and Michael Saunders from Stanford University. An additional solver routine automatically chooses the best solver type for the user-specified optimization problem.
Users access the optimization functions through an interactive programming interface. Here they provide a vector of parameters and a set of arbitrary constraints along with a single quantity to optimize. The function describing this quantity can be a simple algebraic expression, any computable function of a group of parameters, or an FEA model of any physics phenomena.
The Optimization Lab includes solvers for the following constrained problems:
- Linear optimization
- Quadratic optimization
- Nonlinear optimization
- Linear least squares
- Nonlinear least squares
It also contains the Nelder-Mead search algorithm for unconstrained nonlinear optimization, which is also well suited to handle non-smooth objective functions.
By using the Optimization Lab together with other members of the COMSOL® product family, engineers and scientists can perform optimization of time- and space-dependent problems based on single-physics and multiphysics applications.
A number of examples detailing different applications for optimization supplement the Optimization Lab. In chemistry, you often do not know the final equilibrium state and composition of a reacting mixture although you do have an overall material balance. By minimizing the mixture´s total free energy of the participating species, you can then find this final composition. Another example examines a gear/shaft assembly that has been fastened through thermal interference. Treating this as an inverse model in the Optimization Lab, it is possible to determine the critical spinning frequency at which the gear and shaft will separate and thus specify safe operating conditions for the assembly. A multiple-parameter fitting example shows how this product is very useful in creating accurate SPICE models of electrical components from experimental data or from sophisticated COMSOL Multiphysics simulations.
About the COMSOL product line
COMSOL Multiphysics is the first software environment to provide scientists, engineers, and researchers with integrated, best-in-class technology for modeling, simulating, and discovering any system with both single or multiple physics phenomena. A broad range of discipline-specific modules extends the COMSOL environment for chemical engineering, earth science, electromagnetics, heat transfer, MEMS, and structural mechanics applications. COMSOL also offers the COMSOL Reaction Engineering Lab®, which allows users to model reacting systems. COMSOL products are available for the Windows, Linux, Solaris, and the Macintosh operating systems. Full details about COMSOL Multiphysics and related products are available at www.comsol.com.
About the COMSOL Group
COMSOL was founded in 1986 in Stockholm, Sweden, and has grown to include offices in the Benelux, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and a US presence with offices in Burlington, MA, Los Angeles, CA, and Palo Alto, CA. Additional information about the company is available at www.comsol.com
COMSOL and FEMLAB are registered trademarks of COMSOL AB. COMSOL Multiphysics and COMSOL Reaction Engineering Lab are trademarks of COMSOL AB. Other product or brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.