Nowadays, the need for travel is growing — and with it, transportation alternatives that are greener; less noisy; and, of course, faster. But what moves must eventually stop, and while most planes, trains, and automobiles use mechanical braking, this type of braking can cause damage and become unsafe at high speeds. Not so with eddy current braking. Here, we investigate the potential for this type of frictionless braking and the phenomenon behind this effect.

A doctor sits down and discusses treatment options with a patient that has coronary artery disease. Typically, a stenting procedure is used to increase blood flow to the heart, but there are complications: The arteries around this patient’s heart have an atypical anatomy. Fortunately, there are self-expanding stents, which can provide the desired fit and even adapt to vessel changes over time. Here, we use simulation to examine how such stents expand to the artery diameter.

You just got the latest smartphone, game console, or tablet. Eager to use it, you set it down to read the directions — but your child grabs it and starts shaking it around. The good news is that the device probably still works, as the internal electronic components have to be certified to function after experiencing certain shock loads. To analyze the shock response of an electronic part (like a circuit board), engineers can use numerical modeling.

Émilie du Châtelet was a French physicist, natural philosopher, and mathematician who contributed to our understanding of Newtonian mechanics. Her translation of Sir Isaac Newton’s book the Principia is considered the standard version in French today. In addition to translating this work, she included her own commentary, adding a conservation law for total energy that emphasizes the role of kinetic energy. She is also famous for her masterful textbook, Foundations of Physics, which takes a philosophical approach to the sciences.

When modeling acoustic devices, it’s often enough to account for linear propagation alone, even though nonlinearities are always present. However, when the signaling amplitude reaches high levels in a design, nonlinear effects become important. Engineers can include nonlinear effects in simulations by taking advantage of the Nonlinear Acoustics (Westervelt) feature in the COMSOL Multiphysics® software, as demonstrated by an exponential horn example.

Ernst Mach made many significant contributions to the fields of wave dynamics, optics, mechanics, and more. A physicist by education and profession, his interest in psychology and philosophy sharpened his thoughts about physics, helping him make connections that he might not have otherwise made. In particular, Mach’s outlook on how we experience sensations from external stimuli informed his approach to physics experiments and led him to exciting discoveries.

When you think of fire protection measures, what might come to mind first is the logistics of getting everyone out of the building safely (i.e., without exposure to hazardous smoke, chemicals, and hot temperatures). Supporting these procedures are active measures like alarm and sprinkler systems, and passive measures built into the structure to minimize damage. To ensure that a building is designed with fire protection in mind, engineers can simulate actions on structures exposed to fire.

Radioactive materials have a long half-life, so they must be stored safely — usually in steel drums. These drums are then stored in confinement systems, which are designed with safety in mind (so that they can resist, for instance, a fire event exceeding two hours). Sogin, the state-owned company responsible for the Italian nuclear sites decommissioning and radioactive waste management, evaluated the fire resistance of a confinement system overpack using the COMSOL Multiphysics® software.

Heart failure is a global health concern, affecting millions of people and keeping them from their everyday lives. But what if there was a device that could keep patients’ hearts pumping and even improve their quality of life? In his keynote presentation at the COMSOL Conference 2018 Boston, Freddy Hansen from Abbott Laboratories discussed a heart pump that could do just that. If you missed his talk, you can watch a recording of the video and read a summary below.

Sir Horace Lamb was a British applied mathematician and professor who wrote several textbooks that became fundamental in physics. Among them is a comprehensive text that was considered the standard for hydrodynamics for many years. His work in this subject resulted in the Lamb vector, the Lamb-Oseen vortex, and Lamb surfaces. He also authored works on sound, statistics, and mechanics.