Ansys STK Shield Plus

Ansys STK Shield Plus is an extension of the Electronics Plus suite designed for Ansys STK. Users can quickly address survivability concerns by using STK Shield Plus to mitigate the effects of electromagnetic (EM) radiation, space plasmas, high-energy radiation, and atmospheric electricity.

With this integration, STK users can access six streamlined workflows inside the state-of-the-art CAE solution of Ansys. We optimized the workflows to provide:

• Shielding effectiveness of enclosures to EM transients
• Lightning risk exposure of critical mission paths
• Cable shielding analysis to EM transients
• Spacecraft surface charging simulations for electrostatic discharge (ESD) risk analysis
• Radiation hardening analysis to high energy particles
• Radiation shielding thickness and ionizing dose at the component level

We also integrated STK Shield Plus with Ansys STK’s mission parameters. These include flight path parameters, satellite ephemeris, and radiation environments. This integration provides mission focused shielding reliability assessments.  

Ansys Discovery makes the advanced physics solutions in STK Shield Plus easily accessible to users. The workflows streamline the process by assigning materials, setting up the radiation environments, meshing, running, and post processing the results.

Streamlined Workflows

Ansys STK Shield Plus offers workflows based on advanced numerical physics simulations, optimized for fast and focused analysis. The numerical physics solvers in Ansys STK Shield Plus are the foundation of the Ansys EMC Plus and Ansys Charge Plus products. By utilizing these streamlined workflows, users can quickly confirm the mission’s continuing reliability when parameters change.

Electromagnetic Shielding Effectiveness

Use Ansys STK Shield Plus’s full-wave Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) EM solver to assess the shielding effectiveness of a spacecraft or the electronics enclosures to electromagnetic radiation. STK Shield Plus, with its robust and efficient meshing capabilities, performs a fast analysis of an enclosure’s ability to shield electromagnetic waves and provides a report on the shielding effectiveness.

Lightning Risk Analysis

Evaluate the risk of lightning strikes impacting an aircraft’s reliability by inputting a flight path into STK Shield Plus. Recover numerous distribution functions of lightning occurrences, including altitude, current amplitudes, types, and catastrophic occurrence likelihood.

Cable Shielding Evaluation

Evaluate the peak current and voltage on various target conductors inside overbraids. Users provide the peak EM signal strength, and the overbraid/ shield properties and STK Shield Plus will analyze the coupling of EM transients onto your sensitive target. If results are above design threshold, the new environment being tested may not be suited for the current design of your sensitive equipment.

Spacecraft Surface ESD Risk Assessment

When satellites interact with space plasma environments, charge will build up at the surface and chassis of a spacecraft. Charging can become so high that it poses a critical risk of ESD, potentially leading to mission failure. STK Shield Plus allows users to assess the risk of ESD on the surface of a satellite, internally to materials, and to the surrounding plasma. Users can utilize standard environment descriptions to model the ESD risk in GEO, LEO, Lunar, and Polar orbits.

Radiation Dose-Depth Curve Generation

STK Shield Plus leverages its advanced particle physics package to accurately generate dose-depth curves. Users provide the particle type – electrons, protons, ions, photons, or neutrons – along with their energy and the chosen material stack-up then STK Shield Plus generates a dose-depth curve for ionizing radiation (TID). Users can obtain the particle energy spectrum for electrons and protons from the STK-SEET module or from IRENE (AE9/AP9).

3D Radiation Dose Modeling

Ansys STK Shield Plus estimates ionizing dose in a specified detector or at the surface of 3D PCB layouts. All users need to do is provide a dose depth curve and geometry that will provide radiation shielding to sensitive equipment. STK Shield Plus leverages GPU acceleration to trace rays that intersect the CAD geometry and estimates the total shielding present. Assign material properties and edit geometry thicknesses all in STK Shield Plus.   

Learn More

Contact EMA’s team of experts to learn more about Ansys Charge Plus, here.

Ansys STK Shield Plus is sold exclusively through Ansys, if you are interested in purchasing this software click here.