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Software · Electric Machine Engineering

Indux Mechanical

An FEA solver specialised for motor structural and thermal analysis

Confirms that the geometry settled by electromagnetic design survives the real loads and temperatures. The temperature field from the heat analysis is passed into the structural analysis as a load, so thermal stress is computed in the same pass.

Where it fits

The question that follows electromagnetic design — will it hold

Where Indux MEC settles the electromagnetic design through magnetic equivalent circuits, Indux Mechanical verifies that result structurally and thermally. It is specialised for electric machines but works for general mechanical components too.

Analysis engine

Indux Mechanical Solver

The compute engine that solves the structural (FEA) and heat transfer (FEM) governing equations. Supports OpenMP and MPI parallel computation.

Pre-processor

Indux Mechanical Desktop

Handles CAD import, meshing, and material and boundary condition setup.

Capabilities

What it analyses

Structural (FEA)
  • Static — linear and nonlinear (Newton–Raphson)
  • Dynamic — Newmark-β
  • First and second order elements — Tetra4/10, Hexa8/20, Penta6/15
Heat transfer (FEM)
  • Steady-state and transient
  • Isothermal, heat flux, convection and volumetric heat generation boundary conditions
Coupling and interfaces
  • One-way thermal–structural coupling (Heat → FEA)
  • Tied, frictionless and frictional (Coulomb) contact
  • Multi-material assemblies
Materials, optimisation, parallel
  • Linear elastic and hyperelastic (Neo-Hookean and others)
  • 2D topology optimisation — SIMP with density filter
  • OpenMP and MPI parallel computation

Validation

Eight canonical cases compared directly against closed-form solutions

To confirm the solver solves the governing equations correctly, results were compared against closed-form solutions published in the literature. This is theoretical verification requiring no measured data, and it also checks that refining the mesh reduces the error at the theoretically expected convergence order.

Structural

4

Heat transfer

2

Thermal stress

1

Thermal–structural

1

Pass criteria

Relative error below 1% on smooth (non-singular) verification quantities, with the observed mesh convergence order approaching the theoretical value.

Singularities are not used to judge

Single maximum values at points where stress theoretically diverges — boundary-condition corners, constrained edges — are not trusted. Judgement uses interior values, medians and profiles instead.

Current status

This product is still in development

DEV The canonical-case verification passes, but the public feature set and support scope are not yet settled. The plan is a workflow that takes the electromagnetic design result from Indux MEC and verifies structural and thermal performance; for now we work through technical review and limited PoC.

Coupled analysis

Thermal–structural coupling on a motor frame

The temperature field from the heat analysis is passed into the structural analysis as a load, so the stress from thermal expansion is computed alongside it.

Heat transfer — surface temperature across the frame
Heat transfer — surface temperature across the frame
Thermal–structural coupling — von Mises stress from the temperature field
Thermal–structural coupling — von Mises stress from the temperature field
Stress concentration around the bolt holes, magnified
Stress concentration around the bolt holes, magnified

The flow from design through to verification

Indux MEC

Magnetic-equivalent-circuit early design — hands over the STEP geometry

Open →

Indux LFX

Electromagnetic FEA for electric machines

Open →

Have a motor structural or thermal problem to verify?

Tell us the component and the load and temperature conditions you need to check, and we will review what is applicable today.