Collaboration and Expert Simulation with Ansys Discovery

What are the benefits of the Ansys Live Solver and how can Ansys Discovery help engineers to work more efficient and expand collaboration? In this interview, you will get valuable insights from Mark Hindsbo.

Mark, in your speech 'Simulation at the Speed of Thought,' you talk about Ansys Discovery and the Ansys Live Solver. Can you give us a quick outline of what the value of this technology for engineers is?

When technology becomes much more accessible than it was before, much faster and much cheaper, we typically see a big change. Previously, simulation used to be the domain of an expert. I believe that the expert is going to be there forever, but now we have a solver that's easy to use for anyone.

Now you get answers in minutes, if not seconds, the Live Solver is very fast and interactive. And it's something that's come down in a price range where everyone who can afford to buy a laptop today, has access to the technology. So, similar to when we got spreadsheets on the computer, all of us could play with numbers in an interactive way. I think we're in the middle of seeing something similar for engineering.

 

In the last releases you made some enhancements in terms of collaboration for engineers working together. Can you tell us something about this?

Ansys Discovery is not all just about physics features. It’s definitely also about workflows. Cloud technology in general and the pandemic have taught us to change how we work and collaborate in different ways. We collaborate with people in multiple time zones across the world, so we want the engineering tools to be the same.

There's no doubt that engineering is a team sport. We're trying to make the engineering tools as collaborative as your spreadsheet or your virtual meeting tool, exactly oriented on the collaboration within the companies. You might be in Germany, I might be in the US, and when you get up, you can take a look at my comment and answer me. Enhancing collaboration across the globe is very important.

For us, it's collaboration amongst engineers but also collaboration amongst the tools. We should be able to go from tool to tool, from generalist tool to specialist tool and back again.
Mark Hindsbo
Vice President and General Manager ANSYS Design Business Unit

Now we can collaborate and unify several disciplines in one single tool. Is it your plan that Discovery displaces the other tools like Mechanical or Fluent?

That's a good and cheeky question. Short answer: No, that’s not the vision. It's a question of where your focus is. You might be a specialist who goes into more depth, and you use your own specialist tool. As a generalist, however, I might be more broader and not have the level of depth. For example, you might have a task in the areas where you're not the expert and you might use Discovery for a thermal analysis or a CFD analysis. For us, it's collaboration amongst engineers but also collaboration amongst the tools. We should be able to go from tool to tool, from generalist tool to specialist tool and back again.

 

What are the possibilities for e.g. structural mechanic engineers to do other simulations?

We're talking about general accessibility. I think the same way that the fact that we now have digital spreadsheets does not make a non-accountant person into an accountant; it just makes an accountant a better accountant. It is the same way with these engineering tools we're developing. The tools that are there today can make you much more productive.

Additionally, we as engineers, have now a unique opportunity to open up and ask a thousand times more questions than we did previously.

 

Hendrik Donner (CADFEM Germany GmbH) and Mark Hindsbo (Vice President and General Manager Ansys Design Business, Ansys Inc.) | © CADFEM Germany GmbH
Hendrik Donner (CADFEM Germany GmbH) and Mark Hindsbo (Vice President and General Manager Ansys Design Business, Ansys Inc.) | © CADFEM Germany GmbH
Portrait_Blog_HDonner

Author

Dr.-Ing. Hendrik Donner

CADFEM Germany GmbH

+49 8092 / 70050-55
hdonner@cadfem.de

Editor

Klaus Kuboth

CADFEM Germany GmbH

+49 8092 / 7005 279
kkubtoh@cadfem.de