Case Study: Cornell Dubilier Electronics achieves accelerated custom capacitor design and thermal optimization with COMSOL Multiphysics

Accelerating Custom Capacitor Design with Simulation Apps

Cornell Dubilier Electronics, a leading custom capacitor manufacturer serving demanding military, aerospace, and energy markets, needed to design capacitors with complex, anisotropic materials and tightly controlled thermal and transient performance. They also required a way for design and manufacturing engineers to explore many configurations without mastering the underlying simulations, so they turned to Comsol, using Comsol Multiphysics and the Application Builder.

Comsol delivered high‑fidelity multiphysics models, shape‑optimization (using SNOPT) to match transient impedance data, and a suite of easy‑to‑use simulation apps that compute capacitance, resistance, power density/temperature distributions, and ESL. By deploying these Comsol-based apps across design and production, Cornell Dubilier validated thermal profiles (e.g., film vs. electrolytic behavior under load), reproduced experimental transient responses, and generated actionable numeric outputs (sample results shown: C ≈ 4.967·10^-5 F, R ≈ 9.989·10^-1 Ω, ESL ≈ 8.256·10^-8 H), speeding development and improving reliability.

Cornell Dubilier Electronics

Sam Parler

Research Director