Discover What’s New for Rocky in Ansys 2024 R1

In 2024 R1, Ansys Rocky continues to address customers’ needs delivering features that enable users to perform accurate DEM simulations keeping focus on Multiphysics, provide new SPH capabilities and optimize user experience, allowing limitless possibilities on particle dynamics simulation.

As usual, it also provides significant performance enhancements and usability improvements.

Take a look at some of the new functionalities:

DEM | Multiphysics

Ansys Rocky and Ansys Mechanical together in the new 2-Way Thermal Coupling

This release brings a significant leap in equipment thermal analysis with the implementation of a 2-Way Thermal Coupling with Ansys Mechanical.

Users can now run thermal simulations in which particles and equipment affect each other in thermal solutions simultaneously, amplifying insights and boosting the depth of thermal analysis.

SPH Fluid Flow Simulation: In this simulation you can see the 2-way thermal coupling between SPH fluid flow inside the tubes, defined on Ansys Rocky (figures on the left), and a heat source applied to the geometry on Ansys Mechanical. Both are being computed through System Coupling and the heat transfer post processed with EnSight (figures on the right).

This feature is also very useful for DEM physics simulations.

Coarse-Grained modeling extensions

The Coarse-Grained modeling compatibility was extended to cover the Liquid Bridge Adhesion model and the SPH-DEM Coupling, unlocking the ability to speed up more complex particle simulations.

Coating Simulation: With this type of simulation, you can estimate the coating distribution between the particles. In such case, Liquid Bridge plays an important role in the particle’s dynamics and can now be speeded up with Coarse-Grained model.

Performance Improvements: Run larger simulations faster

Following the tradition, Rocky solver algorithms were improved to run even faster and larger simulations.

• Sorting Algorithms improvement: Huge performance gains for simulations in which the sorting algorithms are triggered frequently.
• Big Geometries Handling: The algorithms for handling STL geometry files were improved again to boost even more the performance of Rocky solver in simulations that involve massive geometries.

The figure above shows excellent performance gains of 40% for GPU Time and 25% for GPU Time Pace with 18 M elements, and 61% for GPU Time and 100% for GPU Time Pace with 9 M elements in a simulation with big geometries handling, compared to the previous version.

Post-Processing Improvements: Even more data analysis capabilities

Several improvements were made to increase the post-processing and data analysis capabilities:

• Post-Processing Data Frequency Management: Now you can save disk space by saving less data. This feature allows you to save only selected data for post-processing in a higher frequency while saving Resume data points in a smaller frequency.
• New geometry wear properties: The cumulative wear volume loss was added as wall triangle property.
• Particle Transparency: This functionality is very useful for visual analysis, mainly for shell particle shape (like plastic bags, leaves, potato chips, pieces of fabric, etc.) type simulations.

In plastic bags transport simulation, the shell particles that represent the plastic bags can be set to be transparent allowing for analysis of the contents within.

Usability Improvements:

Everything that is good can get better, so in this new version we have worked to improve even more the Rocky’s Features that you already know, with the:

• 3D view duplication: Now it is possible to duplicate your 3D view window, making it easier to view and make changes to your simulation.
• Reload file button for CFD Coupling: With this new version you can reload a file without losing the parameters you have set to your coupling simulation.

In the image above you can see a simulation with the 3D view duplicated.

SPH | Capabilities elevated to high levels

Discover fresh perspectives in fluid simulation, leveraging the new state-of-the-art SPH capabilities for enhanced insights.

• Incompressible SPH (iSPH): Through this beta module, it is possible to enable a new algorithm for computing pressure that speeds up to 4x simulation times using compared to the default SPH formulation.

Cumulative wet time and tangential stress are critical analysis to be done to evaluate the dishwasher equipment design efficiency.

• Heat Transfer Coefficient (HTC) on Walls: Calculate the heat transfer coefficient on walls for equipment convective thermal analysis.

The evaluation of an electric motor’s cooling performance heavily relies on thermal simulations, where the analysis of the Heat Transfer Coefficient plays a crucial role.

• SPH point cloud air drag module: This beta feature accounts for the interaction with a static velocity vector field representing airflow in a 1-way coupling fashion with Ansys Fluent when solving the liquid phase using the SPH solver.

The airflow resulting from gears movement significantly influences high-speed gearbox simulations and its influence on fluid flow can be represented by the SPH point cloud air drag module.

• Non-Newtonian Models: Non-Newtonian fluids are present in many industries and day-to-day activities, such as Mining, oil & gas, cosmetic, food processing and healthcare.

The dynamics of fluids like ketchup require non-newtonian viscosity representation to be properly modeled and simulated.

Rocky has a new look: Discover the New User Interface

To deliver an even better experience when using Ansys Rocky, in this release we present you a new interface with:

• New Mouse Controls: The pan, zoom and spin controls were standardized within Ansys products family.
• New Default theme: Following the new Ansys style standardization, Rocky has adopted dark mode as its default theme.
• Improved CFD editor’s interface.

The new Ansys Rocky dark theme stands as a modern and elegant choice, reflecting the current trend of refined and sophisticated design.

PyRocky: The rise of a new Developers Ecosystem

With PyRocky, developers and engineers are empowered to utilize Python’s capabilities effectively, enabling efficient pre-processing, post-processing, and data extraction from Rocky simulations. By leveraging Python client libraries, engineers can automate repetitive tasks, personalize workflows, and craft bespoke solutions tailored to their unique engineering needs.

*PyRocky GitHub will be available on Feb 15^th ,2024

Rocky on Ansys Help: Online and Easy to access Documentation

Rocky 2024 R1 documentation is under Ansys Help in alignment with the Ansys documentation standards. The following manuals were migrated:

• User and Technical Manuals
• Validation and Verification Manual
• Modules Documentation
• Tutorials and Videos

Rocky page on Ansys Help, with Rocky manuals, tutorials, and videos.

Ansys Rocky Space: A new platform to elevate the Rocky User Experience

This space was created to be a place where Rocky users can find all the information, they need to use the software.

There you will find:

• Rocky Courses
• Rocky Learning Forum
• Blog Posts & Webinars
• FAQs

Be directed to:

• Manuals
• Tutorials
• Videos
• Installation Guide
• Other Rocky Features, such as Modules and Scripts.

And of course, the most important part, You! after all, more than a platform, Ansys Rocky Space is a community and will only be complete with Rocky users.

Ansys Rocky Space Home Page.

Ansys Rocky is the industry-leading discrete element method (DEM)

software used for simulating the motion of granular

and discontinuous material.  

Ansys Rocky: Exploring the Multiphysics Simulation Universe beyond DEM.