Ansys vs. COMSOL

[meshparts]

Hello!

My institute is thinking about achieving the Finite Element Software COMSOL. We have already Ansys.

Our hope with COMSOL, is to get a more user friendly package for lower price as for Ansys. Primary we would use COMSOL for students if the learning effort is lower as for Ansys. On the other hand we wold like to know, what are the fields where COMSOL is better than ANSYS or vice versa.

So I would like to know more about your experience with COMSOL and, if it happens to have worked with Ansys too, what are the main advantages of the both software.

Thank you in advance!

Regards
Alex

 

[fkmeyers]

I used COMSOL about 3 years ago and found it only worked well with simple problems. If that limitation is still there I would recommend ANSYS over it.

 

[cbrn]

Hi,
when it comes to ease of use, then consider Workbench in release 11.0 of Ansys. I read the documentation about the new release and now Workbench is able to do almost all that used to be possible only in Ansys Classical environment. In my opinion WB is extremely user-friendly, while preserving all the robustness of Ansys' underlying maths.

Regards

 

[meshparts]

Thank you both for the useful answers!

What about special features? I have heard, that COMSOL can simulate Electric Machines with moving parts (rotor relative to stator) by connecting 2 different meshes. How good are the results? I know this is also possible in Ansys but it's not a standard feature.

So is there a point where COMSOL is better than Ansys (Classical or WB)? Is it worth the money?

Regards,
Alex