ANSYS Products 2026 R1
Version 2026 R1 · ANSYS Inc. · Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit) · ranked #111 in the library
The complete simulation stack in one installation, covering structural, thermal, fluid, electromagnetic and multiphysics analysis with the workbench environment tying the studies together around a shared model.
Read the installation section below before you start. The order of the steps matters on this release.
About this release
Overview
This is the full product bundle rather than a single solver. Mechanical for structural and thermal analysis, Fluent and CFX for computational fluid dynamics, HFSS and Maxwell for electromagnetics, LS-DYNA for explicit dynamics, Icepak for electronics cooling, SpaceClaim and Discovery for geometry preparation, and the Workbench environment that connects them so an output from one study feeds the input of the next.
The workflow that makes it coherent is geometry in, physics setup, mesh, solve, post process, with each stage editable and the whole chain rerunnable when the geometry changes. Meshing is the stage that decides whether a study is trustworthy, and the meshing tools cover automatic tetrahedral generation, sweeps, hex dominant methods, inflation layers at walls for boundary layer resolution, and quality metrics that tell you where the mesh will hurt the solution.
Post processing produces the material an engineering report needs: contour and vector plots, streamlines, particle traces, animations of transient behaviour, chart output of monitored quantities against time or iteration, and probe results at specific locations. Parametric studies sweep a design variable across a range and tabulate the responses, and the optimisation module drives that toward a target rather than leaving you to read the table yourself.
What it does
Feature breakdown
Structural and thermal analysis
Linear and nonlinear statics, modal, harmonic, transient and thermal studies with contact, plasticity, large deformation and coupled field capability.
Computational fluid dynamics
Pressure and density based solvers covering turbulence models, multiphase flow, combustion, heat transfer and moving mesh problems.
Electromagnetics and electronics cooling
High frequency and low frequency electromagnetic solvers alongside dedicated thermal analysis for electronic assemblies.
Explicit dynamics
Impact, drop, blast and high rate deformation studies with the explicit solver, including material failure models.
Meshing with quality control
Automatic and controlled meshing with inflation layers, sweeps, hex dominant methods and metrics that flag where the mesh will degrade the result.
Parametric studies and optimisation
Sweep design variables across ranges, tabulate the responses, and drive the design toward a target with the optimisation module.
Changed in this build
Version 2026 R1
- Solver performance improved on large models when run across many cores.
- Meshing rewritten for better element quality on thin walled and small feature geometry.
- Geometry preparation tools extended with faster defeaturing on imported models.
- Post processing now handles very large transient result sets without loading everything into memory.
- Improved material library with a broader set of nonlinear and composite definitions.
Installation
Follow these in order
- Take the machine off the network entirely before starting.
- Extract the archive to a drive with at least 130 GB free.
- Disable real time protection for the whole process.
- Install the licensing manager component first and let its service start.
- Run the main setup as administrator and select the products you need rather than everything.
- Reboot, launch Workbench to confirm the products register, then restore protection.
Release notes
From whoever packed it
- The licence manager service must be installed and running before any product will launch.
- Installing every product consumes well over a hundred gigabytes. Select only what you use.
- Set the solver scratch directory to a fast local drive rather than a network share or a mechanical disk.
System requirements
Minimum and recommended
| Operating system | Windows 10 version 22H2 or Windows 11 Professional, 64-bit |
|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Xeon or AMD equivalent, eight cores minimum, sixteen or more for fluid work |
| Memory | 32 GB minimum, 128 GB or more for large fluid and explicit models |
| Graphics | Certified workstation GPU with 4 GB VRAM, more for large result visualisation |
| Storage | 120 GB of free space, fast NVMe strongly recommended for solver scratch |
Questions about this release
Answered before you ask
- Can it run across multiple cores?
- Yes, the solvers scale across cores and the parallel settings are configured per study.
- Does it import CAD geometry directly?
- Yes, through both direct readers for the major systems and neutral formats, with geometry repair tools included.
- Do I need all of it?
- No. The installer lets you select individual products, which keeps both the install size and the launch time down.
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