Learning Forum

[Vishal Ganore]

What is the difference between AIM Student and ANSYS Student. Which product should I use?

[Vishal Ganore]

AIM Student is our modern, highly intuitive simulation product. It has a very contemporary UI that is tightly integrated with ANSYS SpaceClaim. It provides a good introduction to structural, fluids and some electromagnetics simulation. It has a very different look and feel to ANSYS Student which is ANSYS Workbench based, and the ease of use does trade off the broader and deeper physics capability provided by ANSYS Student. This Features Table provides more detail on the differences. 
Very generally: If you are new to simulation, then choose AIM Student. If you exhaust AIM Student's capabilities then you can easily switch to ANSYS Student for a far deeper dive into simulation.

[rabi]

Is there any differences between AIM Student and ANSYS Student in case of generating mesh

[Vishal Ganore]

Each product has its own meshing tools and options to generate the mesh. 

[peteroznewman]

I built the same Static Structural model in both AIM 18 and ANSYS 18 Mechanical to illustrate the difference in workflow. They were recorded by starting with geometry in the NX CAD system. The geometry is from the edX Cornell simulation course I am taking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhKUPH1GWDM

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhCupEhfeJs

 

I did customize the ANSYS Mechanical Workbench after installation to have Aluminum be in the list of default materials. There are many steps required to add Aluminum to a model, so I found a way to have that be there along with the default Structural Steel.

 

[Fernando Torres]

Do we have to sacrifice little bit of accuracy while using aim ? I mean, if I perform a complex analysis on AIM then the same one on wb , will there be any difference? Here I performed a pull analysis on broach which was solved in less than 2 minutes (on general mesh or default mesh settings of AIM ) but when I imported the same file in wb and meshed it (again default mesh of wb) the nodes and elements count were so large so that I didn't bothered to solve it on wb. So can we take reliable results from AIM for our university Projects etc.

[peteroznewman]

Hello Fernando,

The solver is the same for AIM and WB, so if the mesh is the same, the accuracy will be the same.

There is no need to sacrifice accuracy when using AIM.  Mesh controls are available in AIM that allow refinement to get the desired level of accuracy. I have written about how much mesh refinement is necessary.

The difference between AIM and WB is that there are more mesh controls available in WB, while the user interface is simpler in AIM. That could lead to AIM having more elements where they are not needed with a corresponding increase in solution time. WB has a better ability to put the elements exactly where they are needed, minimizing the solution time for the same accuracy in the area of maximum stress.