High-Performance Computing

High-performance computing (HPC) is an important consideration for academia. Complex research projects often involve simulating large assemblies, even entire systems which in turn demand considerable computational resources when rapid results are required. The widespread availability of multicore processors, even in laptops, allows for impressive performance gains for medium to large numerical problem sizes. The ANSYS Academic products meet these HPC requirements by providing two levels of HPC:

  • Built-in HPC: For Teaching, Research and Associate level licenses HPC capability is built into each task of the Academic base licenses. For most physics solvers this is both shared and distributed memory HPC capability for up to sixteen cores, plus GPU access is enabled for ANSYS Mechanical, Fluent and electronics solvers.
  • Add-on HPC: For Research and Associate level licenses, the built-in HPC capability can be extended by purchasing additional ANSYS Academic HPC licenses. For most physics solvers both shared and distributed memory HPC and GPU capability can be extended.

The ANSYS Academic product solvers support the same HPC methods provided by our commercial HPC products. So, for example, if the ANSYS Academic product contains ANSYS HFSS then the HPC methods available to the Academic HFSS product is the same as that for the commercial ANSYS HFSS product. It is also important to note, that the type of HPC available varies by solver and physics type, and not all solvers support all HPC methods. Please see the following PDF brochure and web page for more specific details of solver support for HPC:

All of the ANSYS Academic Products that bundle solvers that support HPC have sixteen HPC tasks built-in. These sixteen HPC tasks can be used for either a CPU core or a GPU card/slot. This means that up to sixteen CPU cores, or alternatively sixteen GPU cards can be used to accelerate simulation solution times.

Structural, Thermal & Fluids Academic Products

  • Built-in HPC capability is allocated/restricted to each task. For example, for a 25-task license of ANSYS Academic Research, each user/task can access up to sixteen cores, with a maximum of 16 cores available per solution.
  • Shared memory (SMP), distributed memory parallel (DMP) and domain decomposition methods are included.
  • GPU access is enabled for ANSYS Mechanical Enterprise (using the ANSYS Mechanical solver) and ANSYS Fluent solvers. Each of the 16 built-in HPC tasks can be used for one GPU card/slot, meaning that up to sixteen GPU cards/slots can be accessed per academic product license. Note that we do not restrict the number of GPU cores per GPU card/slot.
  • Frequency Sweep VT and VT Accelerator is built-in and available for the ANSYS Mechanical solver. This is a legacy HPC frequency sweep solution that has been largely replaced by DesignXplorer and Design Point Updates.
  • The following structural, thermal and fluids solvers support HPC:
    • ANSYS CFX (SMP, DMP)
    • ANSYS Fluent (SMP, DMP)
    • ANSYS Mechanical solver (SMP, DMP, Domain Decomposition)
    • ANSYS Autodyn (SMP, DMP)
    • ANSYS Polyflow (SMP, DMP)
    • ANSYS Icepak (SMP, DMP)

Electronics Academic Products

  • Built-in HPC capability is not allocated/restricted to each task. For example, for a 25-task license of ANSYS Academic Research HF, four hundred HPC tasks are built-in, so a single user can use all 400 HPC tasks, or alternatively 25 users can each use sixteen cores per solution.
  • A legacy shared memory (SMP) multiprocessor capability is enabled, this can make use of any number of SMP cores, but does not scale well beyond sixteen cores. It has been largely superseded by other HPC methods.
  • Distributed memory parallel (DMP) and domain decomposition methods are included.
  • GPU access is enabled.
  • The following electromagnetics solvers support HPC:
    • ANSYS HFSS (SMP, Domain decomposition, Distributed frequency sweep)
    • ANSYS Maxwell (SMP, Distributed frequency sweep)
    • ANSYS Designer (SMP, Distributed frequency sweep)
    • ANSYS Q3D (SMP, DMP)
    • ANSYS SIwave (SMP)
    • ANSYS TPA (MP, Distributed PKG analysis)
  • The Academic ANSYS Redhawk and ANSYS PowerArtist products do not use HPC at this time.

All ANSYS Academic Research and ANSYS Academic Associate products can extend their built-in HPC capability with add-on HPC licenses. ANSYS Academic Teaching products may not extend their built-in HPC capability. There are four types of add-on HPC product licenses as follows:

Add-on Academic HPC Product
(per core & workgroup)

Extends the built-in HPC of the
following base product(s)

ANSYS Academic Associate HPC

ANSYS Academic Associate

ANSYS Academic Associate CFD


ANSYS Academic Research HPC

ANSYS Academic Research

ANSYS Academic Research CFD

ANSYS Academic Research Mechanical

ANSYS Academic Research Autodyn

ANSYS Academic Research Polyflow

ANSYS Academic Research Electronics Thermal

ANSYS Academic Associate Electronics HPC

ANSYS Academic Associate EM

ANSYS Academic Associate HF

ANSYS Academic Research Electronics HPC

ANSYS Academic Research EM

ANSYS Academic Research HF

One task of ANSYS Academic Research/Associate HPC extends the base HPC ability of any one of the solvers that supports HPC that is contained in the base product (see built-in HPC section for more details of what HPC methods are available for each solver). Each task adds another core.

Both SMP, DMP and domain decomposition methods are extended to additional cores by the add-on HPC academic products. Please see the built-in HPC section above for specifics about what bundled solvers support what type of HPC.

For the structural, thermal and fluids academic products, the add-on HPC licenses can be used to extend the GPU capability provided by the built-in HPC tasks. Each add-on HPC license (task) can be used to access either a CPU core or a GPU card/slot.

Category & Product Name Has Built in HPC? Can use add-on Academic HPC licenses? Can use add-on Academic Electronics HPC licenses?
Academic Multiphysics Campus Solutions
ANSYS Academic Multiphysics Campus Solution YES YES YES
Academic Associate
Mechanical and Fluids      
ANSYS Academic Associate Mechanical and CFD YES YES N/A
ANSYS Academic Associate CFD YES YES N/A
Electronics      
ANSYS Academic Associate Electronics Suite YES N/A YES
ANSYS Academic Associate HF YES N/A YES
ANSYS Academic Associate EM YES N/A YES
ANSYS Academic Associate RedHawk NO N/A NO
ANSYS Academic Associate PowerArtist NO N/A NO
Academic Research
Mechanical and Fluids      
ANSYS Academic Research Mechanical and CFD YES YES N/A
ANSYS Academic Research Mechanical YES YES N/A
ANSYS Academic Research CFD YES YES N/A
ANSYS Academic Research Polyflow YES YES N/A
ANSYS Academic Research Electronics Thermal YES YES N/A
ANSYS Academic Research LS-DYNA NO NO1 N/A
Electronics      
ANSYS Academic Research Electronics Suite YES N/A YES
ANSYS Academic Research HF YES N/A YES
ANSYS Academic Research EM YES N/A YES
ANSYS Academic Research RedHawk NO N/A NO
ANSYS Academic Research PowerArtist NO N/A NO
Academic Teaching1
Mechanical and Fluids      
ANSYS Academic Teaching Mechanical and CFD YES NO N/A
ANSYS Academic Teaching Mechanical YES NO N/A
ANSYS Academic Teaching CFD YES NO N/A
Electronics      
ANSYS Academic Teaching Electronics Suite YES N/A NO
ANSYS Academic Teaching HF YES N/A NO
ANSYS Academic Teaching EM YES N/A NO
ANSYS Academic Teaching RedHawk NO N/A NO
ANSYS Academic Teaching PowerArtist NO N/A NO
Academic Toolbox
ANSYS Academic Meshing Tools NO N/A N/A
ANSYS Academic Fuel Cell Tools NO N/A N/A
ANSYS Academic EKM Shared NO N/A N/A
ANSYS Academic Composite Tools NO N/A N/A

Table Notes:

1. ANSYS Academic Research LS-DYNA can add HPC capability with the ANSYS Academic Research LS-DYNA HPC product.