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Solves a 111 Million Degree of Freedom structural analysis model; Milestone demonstrated at 2004 International ANSYS Conference -- ANSYS, Inc., a global innovator of simulation software and technologies designed to optimize product development processes, today announced that it has become the first engineering simulation company to solve a structural analysis model with more than 100 million degrees of freedom (DOF), making it possible for ANSYS customers to solve models of aircraft engines, automobiles, construction equipment and other complete systems. In a joint effort with Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI), the 111 million DOF structural analysis problem was completed in only a few hours using an SGI Altix computer. DOF refers to the number of equations being solved in an analysis giving an indication of a model's size. To showcase the milestone, ANSYS technical staff will demonstrate the capability today during its 2004 International ANSYS Conference in Pittsburgh. "ANSYS' ability to solve models this large opens the door to an entirely new simulation paradigm. Prior to this capability, a simulation could be conducted only at a less detailed level for a complete model or only at the individual component level for a detailed model. Now, it will be possible to simulate a detailed, complete model directly; potentially shortening design time from months to weeks. Equally important, having a high fidelity comprehensive model can allow trouble spots to be detected much earlier in the design process. This may greatly reduce additional design costs and can provide an even shorter time to market," said Jin Qian, senior analyst at Deere & Company Technical Center. According to Marc Halpern, research director at Gartner, although simulation accelerates the delivery of quality products to market, users have faced major challenges to realizing the full value. For example, hardware and software limitations have historically made realistic simulations elusive when realism involves highly detailed models and complex physical behavior. "Manufacturers are looking for more accurate, large system simulations to improve their time-to-money," said Charles Foundyller, CEO at Daratech, Inc. "This announcement means that users now have a clear roadmap to improved productivity." As hardware advances in speed and capacity, ANSYS is committed to being the leader in developing CAE software applications that take advantage of the latest computing power. This leadership provides customers with the best engineering simulation tools for their product development process to help achieve better cost, quality and time metrics. "The advances that ANSYS has made in enabling engineers to simulate the largest models at high levels of detail promises to deliver significant value to SGI Altix customers," said Dave Parry, senior vice president and general manager, Server and Platform Group at SGI. "This capability takes full advantage of the Altix system's unique ability to combine leading-edge computation performance with very large memory, making ANSYS and Altix a powerful solution for CAE simulation. We are pleased that our collaboration with ANSYS will continue to advance customer capabilities for their CAE needs today and as their requirements grow." This powerful new offering from ANSYS speaks to its commitment to develop and deliver the best in advanced engineering solutions. In turn, ANSYS has entered into a three-year partnership with SGI to advance the capabilities of ANSYS in parallel processing and large memory solutions. "The ability to solve 111 million degrees of freedom is just the beginning of the new level of simulation technology that's coming into the marketplace," said Jim Cashman, president and CEO at ANSYS. "We are pleased to announce our partnership with SGI, and we intend to continue to deliver more innovations like this in the future."