You can use the new fluid-fluid Interface Review tool to visualize and inspect the interfaces between different fluids in your simulation. The tool allows you to control the detection distance and visually diagnose the overlapping interfaces or conversely check that the interface does exist where it is expected. To review the fluid-fluid interfaces, you must first go to File Menu > Settings > Physics and turn on Show fluid-to-fluid interfaces. The interfaces can be reviewed by double-clicking the automatically created condition under Fluid-Fluid Interfaces in the physics tree. Alternatively, under Review on the Simulation tab, select Default Fluid-Fluid Interfaces to load the Interface Review tool. Each interface pair is shown in the model as a single dot.

You can now select the meshing method for your simulation under File Menu > Settings. Go to Physics and under Simulation Options Defaults for fluid flow, select the Meshing method. The default meshing method is Tetrahedra mesh. Depending on the complexity of your model and the solution accuracy you can change the default setting to Polyhedra mesh. The meshing method affects the speed and accuracy of the simulation, memory and storage requirements.

Structural solver enhancements for Explore include:

Connection assessment tool enhancements include:

Contact and interface review tool enhancements include:

You can now apply local fidelity in Explore and Refine for fluid flow simulations. Use Local on the Simulation tab, to manually set lower or higher result resolutions. In Explore, for structural and solid thermal simulations, local fidelity can only be assigned to bodies and for fluid flow simulations it can only be assigned to faces. In Refine, you can apply local fidelity to bodies, faces, and edges for all physics types.

Explore fluids now includes the capability to display the mesh for fluids and fluid-solid (conjugate) heat transfer simulations when a local fidelity is specified. The mesh can be displayed on a cut-plane or the surface mesh can be displayed by using the Mesh option in the Results arc. This new capability improves the ability to review the discretization of the model and effects of local fidelity on the fluids mesh.

In the Refine stage, you can now be notified after simulation of any display elements that exceed quality thresholds. These notifications ease the validation of mesh quality and help you identify areas to apply local fidelity.

You can define default thresholds for these mesh quality metrics in the Physics Settings:

Which can be overridden for any project in the Simulation Options on the Simulation ribbon.

You can view the elements that do not meet the quality threshold either by clicking the link in the notification message or by selecting the mesh metric you want to view from the Resolution > Structural options dropdown list.

You can now specify the target for your monitor.

You can generate a project report showing details about your project. Output parameter monitor data for the current defined variation is displayed in the report.

Solved defined variations are plotted as points on the chart. Hover over a point to see the associated values and the variation they represent. Right-click to access more options such as Export to CSV.

Mass flow-weighted averaging is new in Discovery 2024 R2.

Discovery generally uses area-weighted averaging for all results monitors. You can now use mass flow-weighted averaging instead for the following results variables:

Under Simulation Options, on the Simulation tab, click Additional Fluid Flow Options to see the options in the expanded panel. Click Mass flow-weighted average for monitors if you want monitors calculated using mass flow-weighted averaging.

You can now monitor the heat flux across a specified surface in Explore and Refine. On solid thermal bodies, you can monitor the heat flux magnitude or vector components. On faces, the monitor is for heat flux monitor normal to the surface.

In previous versions of Discovery, the reaction resultant magnitude was over the entire support surface. Now, in Explore, the reaction resultant magnitude is distributed between the applied surfaces. However, in Refine, it is still over the entire support surface.

In the Explore stage, the workflow for upfront simulation of bolted connections is now enhanced to include support for bolt force and moment monitors, including axial stress, shear force, torsional moment, and factor of safety. Used in combination with the Connection assessment tool, these new bolt monitors improve the workflow for defining and evaluating the structural integrity of bolted connections based on a modified AISC allowable stress criterion.

You can now include additional particle and streamline emitters. In the Results arc, turn on Streamlines or Particles and from the options, select Add emitter. The first emitter is added to the first inlet while additional emitters are added to subsequent inlets and finally offset from one another at the last inlet. Additionally, you can place an emitter anywhere on your model by choosing Add a Streamline (or Particle) Emitter from the context menu.

Displayed iso-surfaces results now update instantly as you interact with your model.

Saved scenes snapshots can now be saved and exported to a ZIP archive with the new Export Snapshots to ZIP command. Also, the settings panel (Results > Saved Scenes) reflects some reorganization and is easier to use.

If you have added cut planes from the Design tab, you can now view results on all those planes by right-clicking any one of those planes in the model tree and selecting Show results. To view the results only for that particular plane, right-click and select Show results on selection only.

Additional modeling documentation that was originally developed for SpaceClaim is available in the Discovery Documentation's Table of Contents. This change provides easier access to detailed conceptual and reference information about modeling functionality in Discovery.

You may notice anomalies in the modeling documentation when accessed from Discovery. Improvements are ongoing.

You can now easily hide and show faces by accessing the new Visibility group on the Display ribbon.

A new advanced Clip Volume tool is now easily accessible from the new Visibility group on the Display ribbon. You now have the option of a spherical or cubic volume and can choose whether to clip the design interactively or based on a selection. You can also clip the design based on a specified location and size.

A new advanced Clip Plane tool is now accessible from the new Visibility group on the Display ribbon. This tool enables you to create a clip plane to show geometry on one side of the plane or the other. Once you’ve created a clip, you can reverse the direction of the clipped view, or merge clips together. Planes, axes, and annotations are not clipped.

You can select up to ten planes to set a clipped volume. Planes selected for clipping display with orange boundaries in the graphics window.

The Equation tool includes options to create curve geometry from preset equations or edit existing curves. You can also create custom curves and save them for further use.

When using the Shared Topology Review tool, the new Keep visible option enables shared entities to display persistently when using other tools.

Materials tools are now available on the Prepare tab, where Discovery users with Discovery Modeling licenses (disco_level1) can access them.

Previously, Materials tools were available only on the Simulation tab for users with Discovery Simulation licenses (disco_level2).

Material import settings are now off by default in the Settings panel accessed under File > Settings > File.

Materials Data for Simulation (MDS) is available through an optional license that provides access to simulation-ready materials data for a broad coverage of materials classes, enabling engineers to create more accurate simulations with trusted data. For easy access, MDS is embedded directly into Discovery and currently contains 771 materials covering a wide range of material classes.

Developments for 2024 R2 have focused on continuing to provide accurate and reliable simulation-ready materials data with standard updates to point and curve data.

There are no new materials in the 2024 R2 release of MDS, but some data values have been updated.

Sustainability data has been added for 39 materials and it is presented for three key environmental indicators:

For additional sustainability data, see the Ansys Granta Selector and Ansys Granta MI products. These products have technical, economic, and sustainability data on several thousand materials which can be accessed in Discovery as required.

The Materials Data for Simulation Sample library provides 39 materials free of charge to Discovery users with basic room temperature point data for mechanical and thermal properties.

Sustainability data has been updated for all the materials in the sample library and it is presented for three key environmental indicators: Climate change (CO₂-eq), Embodied energy, and Potential to recycle. See Materials Data for Simulation above for details.

Curved vectors can now be exported to GLTF (*.glb) format. In the Save As dialog box, select the File Type as GLTF and click Save.

Curved vectors can also be exported by clicking Scene > Export to 3D Image. A save file dialog prompts for a file name and location to save.

File options enhancements include:

To assist with script writing, right-click a Tool or Tool Option in the Extension Tree and choose Copy script reference to copy it to your clipboard. You can then paste the relevant script reference into the Script Editor.

Additionally, a new

button has been added at the top of the Script Editor panel to close all script tabs, leaving only active scripts and those associated with highlighted tree items open.

We've introduced a new Read only option for text boxes, allowing you to include text boxes with fixed values that cannot be edited.

Additionally, the Value with Units text box type lets you define an initial value, along with minimum and maximum thresholds. After previewing or publishing your extension, any values entered outside of the specified range will prompt an error message to your users.

New mouse mappings have been added for Spin and Pan under Settings > Navigation.

LMB + Alt has been added for Spin and MMB + RMB has been added for Pan.

Select Check for updates to be notified when a new version or service pack is available. You can check manually at any time.

Set the default top direction of a Discovery session. Z is the up axis and Y is the down axis.

Creating custom shortcuts is easier now with over 200 commands available in the dropdown to make shortcut assignments.

New and updated color maps address color blindness ambiguity. Color maps now available in Display under Settings > Results include: standard Rainbow, Accessible Rainbow (Turbo), and Blue-Gray-Red (Cool Warm).

Discovery Release 2024 R2 continues improvement in application performance and modeling responsiveness. You may notice performance improvements in all stages from refresh rates to solution rendering, and improved stability for long running sessions.

Some specific items worth noting include performance improvements in modeling, migrating and opening projects from previous releases, and background physics automation. Progress dialogs improve feedback and demonstrate enhanced responsiveness.

Some computationally-heavy physics operations may lead to a performance lag in Discovery’s responsiveness. Background automation for physics (in the Physics tab of the Settings panel) is now ON by default. With this option, Discovery remains responsive during contact detection and updates the model state asynchronously. This means you can continue editing the model in the Model stage during an update.

Display improvements for multiple windows, resolution and scaling, support moving and undocking objects from the main graphics window to display outside of the main Discovery window.

The documented memory requirement for installing Discovery has been changed to 16 GB RAM or greater. Previously, it was documented as 32 GB RAM or greater.

Running LiveGX in CPU mode is no longer limited to 4 cores. If more than 4 cores are needed, CPU mode now allows Discovery to acquire the appropriate HPC licenses so you can leverage the full processor.

When performing a silent install, include the -geometryservice command line option to install the headless geometry service packet. PyAnsysGeometry can use the headless geometry service to execute Python scripts for PyAnsys workflows.

You may install the geometry service packet with or without other products. For example:

setup.exe -discovery -geometryservice

setup.exe -geometryservice

Installation of the geometry service packet is available only via the setup.exe command line option.

Discovery 2024 R2 checks whether the required prerequisites are present, and it reports the results in several ways:

Web licensing now includes new Named User products for Discovery Modeling and Discovery Simulation.

The licensing modes for Discovery have changed as shown in the installation panel below. The panel provides access to detailed information to help you choose the correct licensing mode.

2024 R2 will be the last release to support the Legacy Named User Subscription option. It will be replaced with web-based Named User licensing at 2025 R1.