Altair SimSolid 2021 Release Notes

Highlights

New Features

Orthotropic material

Orthotropic materials are now supported. The material properties for these materials differ along mutually orthogonal axes. You can add them to the material database by choosing the orthotropic material type.

Figure 1.

You can define orthotropic material in the context menu for a selected part in the Assembly workbench.

Figure 2.

Fatigue Analysis using E-N (strain-life) approach

Uniaxial and multiaxial fatigue methods using the E-N (strain-life) approach are supported. Time-series histories and sequential load cases are supported. Time series histories can be imported from .rsp, .rpc, or .csv files.

Figure 3.

Use mean-stress correction to account for the effect of non-zero mean stresses. For damage caused by tensile crack growth, use Smith, Watson and Topper or Morrow damage models. Use Fatemi-Socie or Brown-Miller for shear crack growth.

Fatigue Analysis using uniaxial method for S-N (stress-life) approach

You can now solve uniaxial fatigue analysis using the S-N (stress-life) approach. Various stress combinations including maximum principal stress, absolute max principal, signed von Mises, signed max shear and critical plane are supported.

Stress linearization

Elastic stress field can now be decomposed through thickness into equivalent membrane, bending and peak stresses. This is supported for linear static analysis. Failure criteria can also be defined for linearized local stresses.

You can access the linearized stress function through the Pick info tab on the Analysis Workbench. You can draw stress linearization segments normal to surface or define them by picking end points for the segment.

Figure 4.

Execute SimSolid functions using a JavaScript file

You can now run SimSolid in batch mode using a JavaScript file. This capability is only available for the full version of SimSolid. With this mode, you can run various operations by executing a JavaScript file through command line arguments. The JavaScript file can also be parameterized and executed using command line arguments. Modal analysis with regular connections is currently supported. Applying boundary conditions is not currently supported.

Sheet repair

You can repair sheets with self-intersections to remove the self-intersections. You can also repair sheets with regions of different than nominal thickness to have uniform nominal thickness through the entire part. SimSolid indicates sheets with self-intersections in red, and sheets with different than nominal thickness in orange. The process to repair sheets is iterative, you may want to repair sheets and re-run to confirm all defects are repaired correctly. Re-run until you achieve the desired effects.

You can also review highlighted parts in the Project Tree.

Figure 5.

Parallel installation of SimSolid

With parallel installation, you can install more than one version of SimSolid on a single system.

Enhancements

Material database

The material database now supports orthotropic material properties and fatigue material curves. Under fatigue properties, both stress-life and strain-life curves are supported. You can estimate fatigue properties from UTS, input them with the slope method, or import them from a .csv file.

SimSolid's new smart material database only invalidates the results of analyses when you change material properties that affect that simulation. For example, if you add or edit fatigue properties, all fatigue analyses using that material are invalid but structural analyses remain valid.

Figure 6.

Bearing load

You can now apply bearing loads to all surfaces of revolution including cylinders, cones, toruses and so on. You can apply bearing loads as forces in radial and axial directions, and as torque to the selected faces. Copying and editing existing bearing loads is now supported.

Coordinate system

You can use the coordinate system dialog to create a local coordinate system to which boundary conditions can be later applied. Defining a system axis by rotating the system about a local axis is now supported.

Linear dynamics

• Absolute acceleration output - Absolute acceleration output is supported for transient analysis with base excitation of type acceleration. Absolute acceleration output is the total acceleration that includes specified enforced motion.
• Peak response evaluation - For transient, frequency response and random response analysis, you can calculate all result peaks over the range of frequencies or time steps during solving. This helps plot the contour instantaneously. Turn on this function by selecting the Evaluate all peak responses during solving check box in the dynamics response setup dialog.

Basic product package

SimSolid Basic now supports all project files containing just Structural linear and/or Modal, irrespective of the version or product package used to generate the project file.

Updated CAD import formats

The list of supported CAD formats is updated as shown:

File Format	Supported Versions
CATIA V4 (.model, .dlv, .exp)	All 4.xx
CATIA V5 (.CATPart, .CADProduct)	R10 to R30
CATIA V6 (.3Dxml)	2011to 2013x
3D Experience (.3Dxml)	2014 to 2020x
Inventor (.ipt, .iam)	All to 2021
JT (.jt)	7.0 to 10.5
Pro/Engineer (.prt, .asm)	13 to Creo 7
ACIS (.sat)	All to R27
SOLIDWORKS (.sldpart, .sldasm)	99 to 2020
STEP (.stp)	203/214/242
STL (.stl)	Ascii/Binary
Parasolid (.x_t)	All to 32
NX/Unigraphics (.prt)	11 to NX CR 1953

Other

• Decimal using non-English keyboards works as expected in all the dialogs.
• Brake rotors are now identified in SimSolid. Right-click on the part and choose Pick info. Parts recognized as rotors have special geometric adaption.
• Total strain energy is output for static analysis. You can review from structural analysis Results > Info. Plot strain energy per part with Results plot; query strain energy using Pick info.
• Review adhesive mass by right-clicking on the adhesive connection and selecting Pick info. Mass and volume of adhesive is now included in Assembly info.
• Geometric nonlinear analysis now supports animation of the results.
• The mode shapes outputs from modal analysis to a UNV file are now mass normalized.
• Mode shapes can be exported in terms of deformed geometry to .ssg/.stl files. To do this, right-click on the modal analysis results branch and select Export in the context menu. You must plot results to activate this function. To export a deformed shape for modal analysis, you should enter a maximum deformation as the displacements are normalized in modal analysis.

  
  
  Figure 7.

• 3D solid seam welds created in SimSolid can be exported as .ssg/.stl file. Right-click on a specific weld connection to export it, or right-click on the seam weld folder to export all welds.
• Running all analysis in a project or design study will suppress all the warnings to run all the analysis sequentially. A summary of all warnings/errors are displayed after the run.
• Recognition of sheets and features such as torus faces are improved.
• You can now query multiple parts by ID/names by right-clicking on Assembly > Show > Parts by ID/names.
• Additional hardware information is displayed under Hardware settings.
• Reaction forces are available at connections, spot welds and bolts for structural superposition.

Known Behavior

Resolved Issues