Multiphysics

Multiphysics is a computational discipline which treats charges and currents they create and by being accelerated
simulations that involve multiple physical models or mul- by the EM field. Particles collide with each other, and
tiple simultaneous physical phenomena. For example, they collide with fluids.
combining chemical kinetics and fluid mechanics or com-
bining finite elements with molecular dynamics. Mul-
tiphysics typically involves solving coupled systems of 3 References
partial differential equations.
Many physical simulations involve coupled systems, such • Susan L. Graham, Marc Snir, and Cynthia A. Pat-
as electric and magnetic fields for electromagnetism, terson (Editors), Getting Up to Speed: The Fu-
pressure and velocity for sound, or the real and the imagi- ture of Supercomputing, Appendix D. The National
nary part of the quantum mechanical wave function. An- Academies Press, Washington DC, 2004. ISBN 0-
other case is the mean field approximation for the elec- 309-09502-6.
tronic structure of atoms, where the electric field and the
electron wave functions are coupled. • Paul Lethbridge, Multiphysics Analysis, p26, The In-
dustrial Physicist, Dec 2004/Jan 2005,

1 Single discretization method

These software packages mainly rely on the Finite Ele-
ment Method or similar commonplace numerical meth-
ods for simulating coupled physics: thermal stress,
electromechanical interaction, fluid structure interaction
(FSI), fluid flow with heat transport and chemical reac-
tions, electromagnetic fluids (magnetohydrodynamics or
plasma), electromagnetically induced heating. In many
cases, to get accurate results, it is important to include
mutual dependencies where the material properties sig-
nificant for one field (such as the electric field) vary with
the value of another field (such as temperature) and vice
versa.

2 Multiple discretization methods

There are cases where each subset of partial differen-
tial equations has different mathematical behavior, for
example when compressible fluid flow is coupled with
structural analysis or heat transfer. To perform an opti-
mal simulation in those cases, a different discretization
procedure must be applied to each subset. For exam-
ple, the compressible flow is discretized with a finite vol-
ume method and the conjugate heat transfer with a finite
element analysis. Another example is the use of elec-
tromagnetic or electrostatic Particle-in-cell (PIC, EM-
PIC, ESPIC) methods combined with Direct simulation
Monte Carlo, where the particles may interact with an
electromagetic (EM) field or other fields, with each other,
and with fluids evolved by finite volume or other meth-
ods. The particles interact with the EM fields through the

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2 4 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

4 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

4.1 Text
• Multiphysics Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiphysics?oldid=771123070 Contributors: Michael Hardy, Jimfbleak, Jitse Niesen,
BenFrantzDale, Dschwen, Kenyob, Arnero, TDogg310, Attilios, SmackBot, Janm67, N2e, Thijs!bot, Girishkaundinya, J.delanoy, Ale2006,
Dajanes, TiagoQuintino, Ruchikaa, MarcosAlvarez, Auntof6, Boleyn, Addbot, MrOllie, Luckas-bot, Yobot, LilHelpa, Xqbot, Omni-
paedista, FrescoBot, Kate P Stuart, Dcheagle, Tegel, FoxBot, Sunil.tahilramani, Klauswolf, Fwchapman, Ankid, Jrobcary, Epok, BG19bot,
Ema--or, Fluidyn wiki, Altairwebmaster, SimulaModel and Anonymous: 39

4.2 Images

4.3 Content license

• Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0