Altair Software and Hardware 2021.1 Release Notes

New Applications

EDEM
Altair EDEM is high-performance software for bulk material simulation. Powered by Discrete Element Modeling (DEM) technology, EDEM quickly and accurately simulates and analyzes the behavior of bulk materials such as coal, mined ores, soil, tablets, powders, etc., and provides engineers with crucial insight into how these materials will interact with their equipment during a range of operation and process conditions. EDEM is being deployed globally in a wide range of industries including heavy equipment manufacturing, agriculture, mining, and process manufacturing. EDEM can be used as stand-alone or combined with FEA, CFD and MBD tools (including MotionSolve).
Inspire Mold
Altair Inspire Mold provides a modern integrated approach to streamline design for manufacturing of injection molded components. Virtual testing, validation, correction and optimization of molding designs can be easily performed through a five-step setup workflow, providing access to evaluation of injection molded part manufacturability that mitigates common manufacturing defects (warping, sink marks, short shots, etc.) long before a mold is designed.
Inspire PolyFoam
Altair Inspire PolyFoam is a modern integrated approach to design for manufacturing (DFM) for polyurethane molding and foaming processes, enabling improved products and reduction of scrap and tooling rework costs. Early simulation helps understand how the material flows during injection, then run an accurate foaming simulation with advanced physics and chemistry. Reduction of cycle time and enhancement of part quality can be achieved by designing accurate gating locations and feed rates, and by predicting most typical manufacturing defects.
Inspire Friction Stir Welding
Altair Inspire Friction Stir Welding is used for simulating friction stir welding, which is a solid-state joining process to create strong welds that are required in critical aerospace and automotive applications.
Inspire Resin Transfer Molding
Altair Inspire Resin Transfer Molding is used to simulate the process of resin transfer molding and its variants such as vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding, which is used to manufacture polymeric composites by infusing a thermoset resin in a fibrous preform and curing. It uses the RTM module of HyperXtrude Solver to simulate the process.

Hardware and Platform Support

Operating system additions
Support for the following platforms has been added:
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux / CentOS 8.2
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP1
Discontinued hardware platform support systems
Support for the following platforms has been dropped:
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux / CentOS 7.4
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP4
  • Windows 7

Installation

HyperWorks 2021.1 suite contains independent product packages
Independent product packages give you the flexibility to download desired packages as needed. Any HyperWorks 2021.1 SA (standalone) update package can be installed either on top of an existing 2021.1 installation, or can be installed independently without the prerequisite of a 2021.1 base.
Important: You can no longer install a different version of an already installed product to the same location (for example, HW Desktop 2021.1 on top of HW Desktop 2021).
Installer capabilities and features
HyperWorks 2021.1 brings with it the robust capabilities and features of HyperWorks 2021 installers, as well as additional support for HotFix installers. These HotFix installers are quick patch type installers that are used to install on top of a prerequisite base installation, unlike the other full installers. These are marked with the word “hotfix” in the installer name and bring with them the quick fixes and features to better suit your needs.

Installation and Packaging Features

  • Default installation paths on Windows and Linux now display <major.minor> version.
  • Windows Start Menu and desktop shortcuts now display <major.minor> version.
  • Launch points were added for the HyperWorks HV – Upfront Loader on Windows and Linux.
  • newFASANT was added to the Feko package on Windows and Linux.
  • Added Altair Simulation Products Installer (master installer) support for Altair EDEM on Windows and Linux.
  • Added Altair Simulation Products Installer (master installer) support for Inspire Mold on Windows.
  • Added Altair Simulation Products Installer (master installer) support for Inspire PolyFoam on Windows.
  • Added Altair Simulation Products Installer (master installer) support for the unified Inspire Extrude package on Windows.
  • Installers were upgraded to InstallAnywhere 2020 SP2.
  • Compatible products and installers were migrated to Amazon Corretto 11.0.7 Java.
  • Altair Compute Console replaces the Solver Run Manager with additional support for CFD Solvers and EDEM.
  • Added launch points for HyperWorks HG, HyperWorks HV, and HyperWorks MV on Windows and Linux.
  • Installation of Python has been revamped to improve performance and save disk space.
  • Overwrite/overlay installation is no longer supported, and the installers will prevent it from happening.
  • Updated the Linux Compatibility Tool for the new supported platforms.
  • Updated the Linux menu to add support for EDEM and HyperWorks Post applications.

Known Issues

The following known issues will be addressed in a future release as we continuously improve performance of the software:

  • The Linux menu shortcuts for Feko applications are not being created. Please launch them from the scripts directory.
  • Using the Back/Previous option with an installer may not reset the installer variables correctly if changes are made and the install session is continued.
  • On Linux, installing a directory with spaces is not supported.
  • Special characters in the path to the temp location can cause the Java in the installer to not function correctly.
  • On Linux, during a console mode install, when using the response file output command -r in the Help Configuration response file may not write out correctly.
  • If there is not enough TMP/TEMP space on the main drive (for example, C: under Windows), then the installer will prompt you to input a new location. Some Java TMP/TEMP space will still try to go to the main drive even when selecting this new location.
  • Clicking the Cancel button to stop an installation via the Altair Simulation Products Installer (master installer) does not clean up the already installed files, but does clean up the files in the TMP/TEMP folder. You will need to uninstall/delete the installed files from the chosen install folder manually if Cancel was clicked.
  • Clicking Cancel to stop an installation causes the Add/Remove uninstaller icon to possibly not function correctly, and then manual removal of the installed files would be necessary.
  • The HyperWorks installers do not support the use of the default InstallAnywhere installer.properties files. We request that a unique name is used when using a response file; for example, installer_hw2021.properties, and to use it with the -f <path_to_file>/<filename> command line option.
  • For NETSETUP client installs from a server installation of HyperWorks, a UNC path must be used to get to the server installation path through Windows Explorer or Windows Network.
  • On Linux, there is an issue with using the Altair Simulation Products Installer (master installer) with the IATEMPDIR variable to specify a custom temporary directory location. All sub-installers will try to use /tmp from the machine running the installers for temporary installer files.
  • With some versions of Gnome, there is a bug where the Linux icons are not placed in a hierarchy.
  • The installer does not run the Linux Menu installation by default, the user must run the installation script.
  • When the Master Uninstaller is used, desktop shortcuts, if any, will not be removed during uninstallation.

Resolved Issues

  • The Altair Simulation Products Installer (master installer) will no longer report an incorrect amount of available disk space on Linux.
  • Resolved an issue where the most recent package was not selected in the Altair Simulation Products Installer (master installer) Choose Install Set panel in some cases.
  • Resolved an issue where Engineering and Manufacturing Solutions Start Menu shortcuts were not being created for "Complete" silent installations.
  • Multiple successive spaces in the installation directory or shortcut folder will no longer cause an issue on Windows.
  • Resolved an issue where SimLab was not being properly added to Linux Menus.