2019

Best in Show 2019: Commercial

Lucy Electric

Engineers used ANSYS Mechanical and ANSYS DesignModeler to analyze the deformation of and stress in the busbars and supports of a medium voltage switchgear during a short-circuit current event. They analyzed several different arrangements in one week, reducing the number of prototypes and saving time and cost in the development process.

Panduit Corp

Cable cleats are needed to restrain high voltage cables during short circuit events because substantial damage can occur before circuit breakers can react to the short. Using ANSYS LS-DYNA to simulate this highly dynamic event yielded substantial cost and time savings in rolling out a new cable cleat product line.

Stressfield Oy

Using ANSYS CFX to simulate supercritical CO2 condensation near the critical point inside a centrifugal compressor has enabled engineers to improve the compressor efficiency and considerably decrease the annual use of primary energy sources.

Best in Show 2019: Academic

Eindhoven University of Technology & KU Leuven

A cycling peloton is a group of cyclists riding closely together to reduce aerodynamic drag and energy expenditure. Running ANSYS Fluent on a Cray supercomputer, researchers analyzed the drag on a peloton of 121 riders, concluding that every rider benefits from the group configuration, and that the most substantial drag reductions are obtained by riders in the mid rear of the peloton.

Linköping University

Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death globally. The ANSYS CFX flow solver computed flow in the coronary arteries, the right side of the heart and mechanical heart valves. When visualized in ANSYS Ensight, the flows showed excellent agreement with clinical flow measurements from MRIs.

Oklahoma State University

Using ANSYS Fluent and ANSYS Mechanical, researchers developed a unique CFD-based elastic lung model, which accurately simulated anisotropic lung motions simultaneously with the transient airflow velocity and pressure fields in a representative virtual human respiratory system.

Best in Show 2019: Startup

Mecuris GmbH

Virtual testing of prosthetic foot designs using ANSYS Mechanical in an early stage of development produced high functional performance in the first iteration, reducing costs and development time. The simulation boundary conditions were based on the ISO standard for testing of prosthetic feet, which imitate human walking characteristics regarding ground reaction force and joint angles.

Hall of Fame Finalists 2019


Cork Institute of Technology The vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) configuration, which significantly reduces the cost of energy, has received renewed interest for offshore floating applications. Engineers used ANSYS CFD for the aerodynamic design of a large-scale stall-regulated H-type VAWT, including prediction of the VAWT’s transient blade loads and complex wake structure.	École Polytechnique Montréal By using ANSYS Fluent to perform multiscale simulations of the two-phase flow physics happening in an aero-engine bearing cavity, researchers were able to locate the oil used to coat the bearings and measure the oil film thickness at the walls. The simulations evaluated the scavenging efficiency of the cavity and created new scavenge designs to reduce the recirculation of oil at the bottom of the cavity.	Eindhoven University of Technology & KU Leuven Vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) are promising candidates for the deep water floating offshore wind farms. However, their complex aerodynamics can lead to dynamic stall of the blades. A new turbulence model in ANSYS Fluent called stress-blended eddy simulation (SBES) provided detailed information on the formation, growth and bursting/shedding of the most important flow phenomena.	Fusheng Industrial Co., Ltd An oil injected rotary screw compressor is widely used to supply compressed air for large industrial applications. Oil injected to cool the compressed air must be separated from the compressed air after discharge. ANSYS CFX was used to simulate volume of fluid and homogeneous free surface models to visualize air/oil separation phenomena and predict oil separation efficiency.

General Atomics Using ANSYS HFSS, engineers designed and optimized a low profile circularly polarized satellite antenna for communication systems. The simulations resulted in reduced antenna height and increased efficiency.	Kvenna EMT To improve engineers’ simulation skills, ANSYS Mechanical was used to simulate an artificial (rubber) jumping dolphin that rolls/spins and hits a ball flying from the opposite direction with its head. The hyperelastic material comprising the dolphin helped in designing elastomeric gaskets in another commercial job.	National Taiwan University of Science and Technology ANSYS Mechanical provided insights into footwear biomechanics by evaluating the slip resistance performance of a sport shoe model with various tread patterns. The traction between shoe and ground was simulated in a nonlinear static-mechanical mode using two analysis steps: the plantar pressure application and ground displacement.	Oklahoma State University Determining the flow and ultimate deposition site in the lung of inhaled medical aerosols is important for evaluation of dosimetry and clinical efficiency. ANSYS Fluent simulation results captured the concentration increase of an inhaled drug in human lungs during multiple consecutive inspiration-expiration cycles.

Siemens Limited In a combined cycle power plant, heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs) play a major role in achieving higher power plant efficiency. Using ANSYS CFX and ANSYS DesignModeler, engineers simulated the geometry of the HRSG inlet duct to maximize the uniformity of gas distribution on the front face of the heat transfer bundle, which increased the efficiency of the power plant.	St. Petersburg State Marine Technical University The cycloidal Voith Schneider propeller (VSP) is a specialized marine propulsion system capable of changing the thrust in any direction in the horizontal plane for high maneuverability. Engineers used ANSYS Fluent to analyze the interaction between the turbulent vortex structure and the cavitation shedding dynamics around the 3D VSP blades.	Texas Instruments India Pvt Ltd In mixed signal designs like automotive radar, the presence of analog and digital components on the same substrate can result in digital noise affecting the operation of analog components. To identify these package level co-existence risks early in the silicon development stage, engineers used ANSYS SIwave and ANSYS Electronics Desktop to co-simulate the package model along with the IOs.	The University of Queensland Development of a portable electromagnetic head imaging platform could accelerate the diagnosis of brain injuries and strokes. Researchers used ANSYS HFSS to simulate and optimize a small antenna array capable of analyzing and defining the frequency dispersive tissue properties for all the different tissues of the head in order to diagnose anomalies.

	Universidad Nacional de La Plata Researchers used ANSYS CFX to study the multiphase flow of medication microdrops injected into two different “valved holding chambers”: a cylindrical standard model and a modified grooved design, with a geometry that induces a swirling motion when a patient inhales. The discovery of quantifiable increases in the total amount of inhaled medication in the grooved design is a positive commercial differentiator.