1 A l t a i r E n g i n e e r i n g

SimLab 11.0

SimLab 11.0

Release Notes

2 A l t a i r E n g i n e e r i n g

SimLab 11.0

System

Support extended to load and save GDA/SLB files of size greater than 4GB.

Memory allocation is enhanced to support large models.

Kubrix remote spawn is supported. This will work if the environmental variable

STS_REMOTEACCESS_KUBRIX is set as TRUE.

CAD Interface

Parasolid v24 is supported.

STEP import and meshing capabilities are improved.

Importing coordinates, publications & Datum Points from CATIA using STEP approach

is supported.

File | Translate option enhanced to support CATIA V5 R21.

Import/Export

Nastran

o Import of plot element supported.

o Import of degenerated TET10 (TET7) is supported.

Abaqus

o Import of multiline format of contact pair and tie cards supported.

o RBE distributing coupling card - node based import supported in addition to node

set.

o Pressure DLOAD reading enhanced to process uniform and varying pressure

effectively.

o Import of centrifugal force supported.

3 A l t a i r E n g i n e e r i n g

SimLab 11.0

Graphics/User Interface

View | Preference

o Meshing

“Create volume mesh in a new Model” toggle has been removed. This

option is available under “Advanced Meshing Options” in the new volume

mesh UI.

o Solver

Option added to display solid element face index based on solver type

(Nastran, Abaqus, Ansys and Permas) is added.

Option added to allow multiple DOF selection in Analysis | Structural |

Connections | spring.

Improved FEM Model for face color, 4 edged face color rendering.

CAD model rendering, rotation and panning performance Improved.

Group UI is enhanced. Boolean option is added under group.

Element Group creation and display performance enhanced.

Can set the mouse settings as in Catia V5. (Press mouse middle button then press mouse

right button now release mouse right button without release mouse middle button it will

activate zoom mode.)

Cutting Plane UI enhanced.

o Option added to control element edge display.

o Cutting Plane view option is added.

Nodes highlighting & orphan nodes rendering performance improved.

Performance is improved for Assembly tree view body ON/OFF, and for Show/Hide for

bodies on right clicks.

"Delete Entity" option updated to delete groups also.

Supported LCS for all the Show | Distance options with the exception of Arc-Arc and

Arc-Vertex options.

Import | Points option enhanced to support Unicode encoded text files.

4 A l t a i r E n g i n e e r i n g

SimLab 11.0

Geometry

Face | Change Fillet

o The option is enhanced to keep the number of layers along the axial direction of

the fillet face remains the same and keep the adjacent faces free from element

intersection.

Body | Create | Ellipsoid

o Option is used to create the smallest ellipsoid by volume that will enclose a body.

Face | Split Face

o The option 'By Feature' is enhanced to extract more planar faces in the body.

Faces are being extracted from loop of edges that are planar.

Body | Show Internal Face

o A default group named “Show_Internal_faces” is created with all the internal

faces displayed. This group can be used for other operations that support groups.

Body | Show Features

o Show Features will take groups as input for guide face and limit face. This is

useful for automation.

Transform | Two Arcs

o Flip function is enhanced to position models correctly.

Meshing

Mesh Control

o Face mesh control is given a higher priority than the cylinder mesh control with

Radius Range.

o Washer mesh control marker display issues are fixed and the washer mesh is

supported only for the circular edges.

5 A l t a i r E n g i n e e r i n g

SimLab 11.0

Local Remesh

o The bug in Local remesh with preserve mesh control creates mesh with high

aspect ratio elements (zero area elements) has been fixed.

Auto Cleanup | Fill Hole

o Fill Partial Edge toggle is added in Edge option. When this toggle is on, it fills the

partial input edge loops (edges that are not forming closed loop).

Auto Cleanup | Fill Planar Edge Loop

o Option will identify edge loops that are planar in the selected body/faces/face

groups and fill them up.

Auto Cleanup | Check Closed Cavity

o Option will locate the end faces of the duct/hole that is closed at one end and open

at other end.

Auto Cleanup | Split Row of Hex to Wedge

o Tool used to clean up the poor quality hex elements in to wedge.

Volume Mesh

o Volume mesher UI is enhanced.

o Strict maximum element size option is supported.

o Jacobian based Tet cleanup is supported.

o Preserve Surface Mesh option is supported.

Q Check

o Preserve mesh control is considered while performing Aspect ratio cleanup.

Cleanup will not modify any elements on preserved face and edges.

o Face based cleanup is supported for Tri/Quad quality.

o Jacobian based Tet cleanup is supported.

o Bar Chart supported for Edge Length Qcheck.

Tools | Modify Layers

o Option is used where layers of elements in the faces have to conform to a profile.

6 A l t a i r E n g i n e e r i n g

SimLab 11.0

Assembly

Body Union

o The Tool is made robust.

Shared Entities

o Behavior has been changed to display only the shared faces between the selected

bodies.

Join - Planar

o The Performance of planar assembly is improved.

FEM

Node | Move Node | To Curve

o To curve option added to project the nodes or nodes of the source edges on to the

target edges.

Node | Set Node ID

o Set Node ID option is moved under FEM | Node. Earlier it was available under

FEM | Tools | Set Node ID.

o Pin Boss Numbering is supported for faces across the bodies.

Element | Delete Overlaps

o Support extended to delete the Intersecting/overlapping elements within a body.

Tools | Create Rib

o 2D rib creation added.

Tools | Move Face

o To move set of faces/nodes along the defined direction. Mesh preserved in

adjacent face during this operation.

Tools | Modify Features | Translate

o Trim if intersect boundary edge toggle added to trim the edge if it hits the

boundary edge.

7 A l t a i r E n g i n e e r i n g

SimLab 11.0

Analysis – Structural & Thermal

Coordinates

o Local coordinates can be specified in the LBC dialogs by picking the same in the

User Interface itself.

Thermal Load

o Thermal Mapping – Map Results dialog Ok button not enabled after importing

input table data. This bug is fixed.

Surface Interaction

o Gap conductance parameter moved to Interaction in Thermal Workbench.

Contact

o Export contact option added in Right click Contact in LBC tree view to export all

contacts at the same time.

o Query contact option added in Right click Body to verify the contacts defined in

the body.

o Permas geometrical gap option added.

o Abaqus cyclic symmetry parameters supported.

o Ansys contact options are remembered.

o Abaqus Adjust parameter updated to define Yes/No for Tie contact.

o Import contact definition file crashes if CAD and meshed models have same body

names. This crash is fixed.

Sets

o Automatic group based set creation is supported.

o Modify mode dialog resize supported. Though resize icon is not visible, it is

permitted.

o Modify mode node set display performance is enhanced.

Spring

o Multiple DOF definition supported.

Gap Element

o Between bodies option added.

o Create MPC option added to create equation between mid node and corner nodes

of quadratic tetrahedron element.

o Abaqus gap element parameters supported.

8 A l t a i r E n g i n e e r i n g

SimLab 11.0

Connect Faces

o Option added to connect dissimilar mesh by shape function based MPC.

MPC

o Automatic cylindrical local coordinate creation supported for planar MPC face

pairs through LBC specification.

Material & Property

o Material and Property categorization done previously as Static, Thermal, Fatigue

and Acoustic have been merged into a single category to facilitate material

definition to be uniform for all analysis.

Export

o Abaqus

o Centrifugal force export support added.

o Large field format supported for node coordinates export.

o File based model, step and output request export added.

o Initial temperature and temperature constraint export bug fixed.

o Node based solid element layer sets export supported.

o Amplitude support added for Flux.

o Export of transient heat transfer analysis parameters enhanced.

o Pressure export – both DLOAD and DSLOAD cards supported.

o Export of surface nodes of body based node sets supported.

o Reset Loads and Boundary conditions option added to remove the

previously defined loads and boundary conditions in a particular load step.

o Pressure export with large number of elements crashes. This bug is fixed.

o Support added to group the pressure based on the pressure value during

import is added

o Import pretension without the referred surface set crashes. This bug is

fixed.

o Option to control writing of modified elements for contact is added.

o Export of varying convection elements having both film coefficient and

temperature as zero value is avoided.

9 A l t a i r E n g i n e e r i n g

SimLab 11.0

o NALL node set is referred for thermal load applied to all bodies.

o Support added to group and export pressure (DSLOAD) based on

amplitude.

o Nastran

o Include file option added to specify external files.

o Radioss

o Variable gap element properties calculation added.

o AVL Excite interface supported.

o Include file option added to specify external files.

o Output request and solution parameters are supported.

o Permas

o Split file option enhanced to support material data in a separate file.

o X1STIFF3 element type supported for ground spring.

o LBC name format - 40 character limit option added.

o Automatic spring creation for planar contact pairs enhanced.

o Ansys

o Supported two ways of Ansys RBE2 modelling - MASS21 element on

Master node alone and MASS21 element on Master and Slave nodes.

o ADVC

o Cards related to linear static analysis updated to support ADVC version 4.

o Marc

o Export of node and element sets added.

10 A l t a i r E n g i n e e r i n g

SimLab 11.0

Results

Import Results

o Abaqus 6.11 and 6.12 results supported.

o Heat coefficient and temperature reading supported for UNV results.

o Supported CAD model display while showing results.

Tools | Query Results

o Option added to query results based on user specified coordinates (XYZ

value).Multiple XYZ input also supported.

o CTRL+ C option supported to input node/element ids.

o Bug in shell element - top and bottom layer results query fixed.

Tools | Show MinMax

o Edge input supported.

o Include mid node option added to control mid node results for min max

calculation.

o Min location highlight colour changed to red whereas Max location is highlighted

in white.

Tools | Frequency Response

o Permas modal analysis results supported. Previously only Nastran modal analysis

results supported.

Tools | Range

o Transparent display is reset when current results display is changed.

o Query results can be done when results are displayed within a range.

Special

Bolt Modeling

Solid Bolt - Enhanced to select washer and thread face/face group to create solid bolt.

Solid bolt thread portion will follow the mesh pattern of the thread faces.

11 A l t a i r E n g i n e e r i n g

SimLab 11.0

Excite

“Advanced Crank Shaft Meshing” and “Advanced Crank Shaft Meshing No Break”

support for non journal regions also.

PowerTrain

Group support added in joints definition file.

Mid-Mesh Modeling The tools to create sketch, extract rib, extract base and to connect the rib and base are

grouped together.

The sketch plane is displayed transparent by default.

The sketch plane is classified as a separate icon under assembly tree view to differentiate

from other body types.

Refer to Appendix -A for the list of tools added/updated for the Mid-mesh extraction

process.

Automation

Automation | Export Specification - Body/Group name option added to export body name

for body based mesh specifications.

Refer to Appendix-B for the list of tools supported for automation.

Refer to Appendix-C for the list of common script functions.

12 A l t a i r E n g i n e e r i n g

SimLab 11.0

Appendix – A: Mid Mesh Tools

Sketch | Mid Line

o This tool is used to automatically extract the mid line (2D sketch) for the cross

section of the ribs and features.

Sketch | Sketch

o This tool is used to create basic geometry entities such as lines, circles and arcs.

Sketch | Modify Sketch

o Sketch modify operations like Trim, Align and Extend are grouped together in

this tool.

Sketch | Show Tiny Edges

o This tool is used to get rid of the extra lines in 2D sketch.

Wire Remesh

o This tool is used to re-mesh the wire bodies.

Extract Base | Remove Ribs

o This tool is used to remove the given ribs and features on the base side of the

model and it is especially used in the case of the IP models having multiple

directions.

Extract Base | Face Offset

o This tool is used to offset the faces for the given distance. Intersection resulting

during the operation will be resolved automatically.

Connect | Show Thin Faces

o This tool is used to automatically identify the redundant surfaces that are not

needed for the mid surface extraction.

Connect | Collapse Face

o This tool is used to remove the tiny faces. This will collapse the face from one

side to the given preserved edges.

13 A l t a i r E n g i n e e r i n g

SimLab 11.0

Thickness

o HM package is supported along with SimLab installation for the thickness

calculation.

Change Thickness

o This tool is used to manually edit the thickness of the faces.

Appendix – B: Automation Tools

a) Newly added script support

User Interface

Cutting Plane | Enable Cutting Plane

Trials | Project Nodes

Assembly Tree View | Delete Solid Elements

Geometry

Face | Split

Face | Show Adjacent

Body | Show Internal Face

Body | Show Features

Meshing

Auto Clean up | Fill Planar Edge Loop

Auto Clean up | Check Closed Cavity

Tools | Change Layer | Cylinders

Assembly

Align | Planar

Align | Cylinder

Shared Entities

14 A l t a i r E n g i n e e r i n g

SimLab 11.0

FEM

Node | Separate Node

Analysis

Structural | Connection | Bar

Structural | Sets | Automatic Set Creation

Special

Bolt Modeling | Bolt Head (Face Based)

Bolt Modeling | Bolt Thread (Face Based)

Bolt Modeling | Bar Pre Tension (Script support added only for node based)

Bolt Modeling | Solid Bolt (Script support added only for Pattern 5 & 6)

b) Existing script Enhanced

Import/Export

File | Import | Catia - Coordinate, Publication option supported.

User Interface

Delete Entities - Group support added.

Group - Empty group creation added.

SimLab Parameters - Parameterization support added for model name and file

name in parameters specification.

Delete Model - Parameterization support added for model name.

Geometry

Transform | Translate - Face group support added. Also parameter support added

for magnitude and vector components.

Body | Break | Plane - Group input supported for plane definition.

15 A l t a i r E n g i n e e r i n g

SimLab 11.0

FEM

Node | Create - Parameter support added for nodal coordinates.

Tools | Create Rib - 2D rib creation added.

Appendix – C: Common Functions in Scripting

In SimLab common script functions are added in scripting which helps to automate the

process

GetIntParameter - To get the integer value from parameter.

GetDoubleParameter - To get the double value from parameter.

GetStringParameter - To get the string value from parameter.

GetEntityFromGroup - To get entities (Face/Edge/Node/Element) from groups

which can be used as inputs for the functionalities in scripting.

Multiple - To multiple two input values whose result can be used as input for

functionalities in scripting.