Engineers interested in creating and measuring sound or acoustic waves can benefit from new simulation capabilities for the COMSOL product line — now available as an acoustics module. The simulator is suitable for examining mechanical wave phenomena in structures and fluids, and is designed specifically for those who work with devices that generate, measure and use acoustic waves. Users can model wave propagation in solids and stationary fluids as well as study aeroacoustics in moving fields.

The module is suitable for a plethora of applications, according to the company, including the audio industry where it can be used for loudspeaker design, whether for standalone speakers or those embedded into electronic appliances such as cell phones. Other applications include underwater object detection and characterization, as well as and far-field processing to predict radiation patterns and signal strength.

The module provides a variety of application modes, which offer tailored user interfaces loaded with predefined settings for acoustics applications. Users create or import geometry before fine-tuning the physics settings and solving the problem. A material library facilitates speedy model setup.

Several features make the module particularly adept at addressing this range of applications. For instance, the theoretical domain of most acoustic problems is infinity, but modeling that domain is beyond the capabilities of any computer. To allow the successful modeling of a truncated well-defined space, the module uses perfectly matched layers (PMLs), a technique that has emerged as a convenient and accurate way to truncate an open acoustic environment. A PML is an additional domain that absorbs incident radiation without producing reflections.

The module is priced at $4,995, and is an add-on module for COMSOL Multiphysics software, which provides the overall modeling framework including a CAD editor, facilities for defining physics and boundary conditions, mesh generation, solvers and post-processing.

More information is available by contacting COMSOL, 1 New England Executive Park, Ste. 350, Burlington, MA 01803, by calling 781-273-3322 or at www.comsol.com.