Ansys Licensing

Ansys information and support

On the Ansys academic software web page, look for the "Academic Products Features Table" link.  That PDF has a complicated table summarizing the software features.

The Ansys academic support web page describes how to learn to use the software.

License types

There are two types of academic licenses for typical Ansys software: teaching and research:

1. The teaching license may only be used for "student instruction, student projects, and student demonstrations." You may not use the teaching license for academic research.
2. The research license may be used for "non-proprietary degree and/or non-degree related research."  You may also use a research license for any condition covered by the teaching license.

The software may not be used for competitive analysis (such as benchmarking) or for any commercial activity, including consulting.

Here are the complete terms and conditions.

Who may use it?

Research groups need to buy research licenses.  To get pricing and other information, please send email to app@ecn.purdue.edu

Teaching licenses are available at no cost, but may not be used for research.

Graduate students typically need to use research licenses.  If you will publish results obtained using Ansys and/or use it for your thesis, then you need to buy and use research licenses.

Ansys software is available on ECN-supported Linux and Windows systems. Please contact ECN if you want Ansys software installed somewhere.

Multiprocessing

Using Ansys on computers with multiple CPU cores and on HPC clusters is supported.  A research license will use up to 16 CPU cores.  To use more, you need to buy Ansys HPC licenses (one HPC license for each CPU core >16 you want to use.)  For example, it you want your Ansys job to use 24 CPU cores, you would need one research license and eight HPC licenses.

Teaching licenses are limited to using a maximum of 4 CPU cores (starting with version 2021)

Changes with Ansys version 2021

A new license system was introduced starting with Ansys version 2021.  If you are using an older version of Ansys, you may need to reset the license preferences to keep using it at Purdue after Dec 14 2021.  Ansys versions 17.0 and newer are supported by the new license.  ECN recommends you use the latest version; contact us if you want to upgrade.

Regarding AnsysEM (Electromagnetics) Suite

Currently, AnsysEM is available for ECE (College of Electrical and Computer Engineering) research groups without the need to purchase licenses.
Please contact ECN if you want AnsysEM installed somewhere.