Welcome to our Blog

More than a Blog, A Place to Learn, Share, and Laugh a Bit

We started an email newsletter back in 2002 as “The Focus.” We kept that up for some time and then made the plunge into blogging around 2008. Over the years, thousands of students and engineers from around the world have told us that our blog is an invaluable tool to them. If you can’t find what you are looking for, don’t hesitate to contact us.

How to Contact PADT for Ansys Support Questions

Long-time customers of PADT know they can count on us for answers to their Ansys support questions and problems. Over the last 25+ years, we have handled tens of thousands of customer support issues ...

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A Simple Adjustment to Fix a Contact Convergence Problem in Ansys Mechanical

As I write this from home during the Covid-19 crisis, I want to assure you that PADT is conscious of many others working from home while using Ansys software as well. We’re trying to help wit...

ANSYS Mechanical – Overcoming Convergence Difficulties with the Semi-Implicit Method

In our last blog, we discussed using Nonlinear Adaptive Region to overcome convergence difficulties by having the solver automatically trigger a remesh when elements have become excessively distorted...

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ANSYS Mechanical – Overcoming Convergence Difficulties with Automatic Remeshing (Nonlinear Adaptive Region)

One of the problems we can encounter in a nonlinear structural analysis in ANSYS Mechanical is that elements become so distorted that the solver cannot continue. We get messages saying the solv...

Five Takeaways from the New User Interface in ANSYS Mechanical 2019 R2

Ten years is a long time in the life of a software product. While ANSYS itself has been around since the early 1970’s and what is now known as ANSYS Mechanical is approaching 20 years old, the us...

How to Use Lattice Optimization in ANSYS Mechanical and ANSYS SpaceClaim 19.2

One of the great new features in ANSYS Mechanical 19.2 is the ability to perform a lattice optimization. Accomplished as an option within Topology Optimization, lattice optimization allows us t...

Using ANSYS HPC or ANSYS HPC Pack Licenses in ANSYS Electronics Desktop (Maxwell or HFSS)

Taking advantage of HPC can dramatically speed up solutions for electronics simulations. Depending on whether you have ANSYS HPC licenses or ANSYS HPC Pack licenses, a different setting needs to be ...

10 Great New Features in ANSYS Mechanical 19.0 and 19.1

ANSYS Mechanical version 19.0 has been available since late January 2018, while version 19.1 was released in May. If you haven’t had a chance to check them out, we thought it would be helpful to lis...

Without Risk There Can Be No Progress

I’m sure most people don’t know the name George M. Low. He was an early employee at NASA, serving as Chief of Manned Space Flight and later as a leader in NASA’a Apollo moon program in the lat...

Six Very Useful Enhancements in ANSYS Mechanical 18

By now you’ve probably heard that ANSYS versions 18.0, 18.1, and 18.2 have all been released in 2017. While 18.0 was the ‘point’ release in January, it should be noted that 18.1 and 18.2 are not...