Information about ANSYS Fluent License
 

Hello Everybody,
Good Day.

I am a graduate student doing a research project in a university which does not have license for Fluent Ansys. I am using Ansys Academic student version (Free) for 2D grid which is enough for my current simulations. I want to publish a research article with me as a lead author. Through online posts, I get a mixed response about it. I emailed the Official Ansys and they send me the link about Terms and conditions of Ansys Academic version. I read those multiple time but i did not find whether the article publishing is considered commercial activity or not? as that journal for example Springer will sell it after publishing. Do any one have better and authentic explanations for this problem?

In connection to the above, In case i have to buy the license for publication. In this case can any one give me approximate price of a Single standalone licence of Fluent (only) with serial processing for a single year lease (Academic research version). I do not want to disclose their pricing through this post, Just want to have approximation whether i can buy it or not.

Thank you for your expert response.

Kind Regards,

Do you plan on making money off the paper yourself? Or will you just publish it freely, and if a third parties charges for access to the paper, that has nothing to do with you? If you yourself plan on generating income off your paper, I believe that would be commercial.

Rough ballpark price would be $20k USD for a 1 year lease.

Thank you very much for your response. I will publish freely in Wiley or Elsevier or Springer. I will not be generating any money as it will be not be open source but third party will generate revenue by giving access to universities. So in conclusion, I am not involved in commercial activity so it is allowed to publish?

Thank you so much for your expert opinion.

Kind Regards,

I'm no expert, I'm an engineer, not a lawyer.
I read over those terms and conditions as well, looks like there are different levels of academic licenses, each with different "may only be used for"

1.) Academic Student & Teaching: (This is what you have)
These products may be used only for: student instruction, student projects and student demonstrations.

2.) Academic Research:
Same as above plus: Degree and/or nondegree-related research.

3.) Academic Associate
Same as above plus: Industry-related research.

So while what you are doing is not "commercial work", it is "research work" as you used the term "research" in your initial post. Meaning you would need, at minimum, the academic research license, not the student license.

I believe the publishing is not the issue here. It whether this is "research" or not, and you stated is was.
Though it's a bit of a grey area what would be considered a student project and research when using CFD.

Research is a systematic investigation, a deep study of a particular topic, whereas Project is a process of achieving a particular result.
You should determine whether what you are working on is a project or research.

Hello Evcelica,


I'm aware this is an old post, but I'm having the same question more or less... I need to publish one or two research/scientific papers as a requirement for my Masters.


I was thinking about using OpenFoam to avoid licensing issues, but OpenFoam has become more of an issue to be honest.


Could I publish these two papers with student or academic license? Or in the worst case scenario, use Ansys student for meshing and then finish the process in OpenFoam?


Thanks!

I really have no idea, your interpretation is as good as mine.
Seems you need the academic research license for research, not the student version which is made for projects, not research.
ANSYS wouldn't do anything to you for misuse, but they very well could go after your university, and try to make them purchase the proper license after the fact. I would bet they are much more concerned with pirated licenses (which they can find out very easily, thanks to their code armor) And less concerned with a student using the wrong, but still legitimate academic license for a research project. (which would be much more difficult to find out, and is a bit of a grey area).
Though the problem size limit of the student version may hinder your work? Perhaps that limit is their way to ensure it isn't misused to any significant degree.