LMS Virtual.Lab Finite Element Acoustics
Compared to the boundary element method, LMS Virtual.Lab Finite Element Acoustics offers a more advanced method for simulating acoustics. Like the boundary element method, it helps predict and improve the sound and noise performance of a broad range of systems. The main difference between the boundary element method and the finite element method is that for the latter you need to model the propagation area, that being air or water.
Finite element includes other advanced techniques, such as an infinite finite element method that helps the user to surround a reduced finite mesh so a radiated acoustic simulation can be performed without having to model the entire propagation area. LMS Virtual.Lab Finite Element Acoustics can be used to perform acoustic simulations in both time and frequency domains. A time domain simulation example would be the noise made when a car door slams. Other finite element examples are temperature fields and flow effects in turbines or volume absorbers in mufflers.
Like the boundary element method, the Finite Element Method (FEM) can simulate a fully coupled vibro-acoustic simulation to determine how acoustic sources affect the structure.
Advanced finite element solvers are also available, like the Krylov solver that increases computation speed by 100 times and archives the acoustic transfer vectors to perform multiple runs in a matter of minutes. Combined with the ability to perform parallel simulations, this increases simulation times up to 16 times using multiple processors.
