Version 15 Beta

Victor

Mecway 15 beta is now available at the link below. I appreciate any feedback either on this thread or by email. As usual, it's a free update for all existing license holders.

https://mecway.com/download/mecway150beta3.msi
https://mecway.com/download/mecway150rc.msi
https://mecway.com/download/mecway150.msi

Changes

Solvers
CCX updated to 2.19 with source code that includes all required MKL files.
You can specify time points for CCX solutions to be generated at.
Fixed support can be applied to elements.
Orthotropic thermal conductivity for CCX.
*KINEMATIC option of node-surface coupling removed because it has little advantage over *RIGID BODY.
*DISTRIBUTING option of node-surface coupling removed because it's not so powerful with the new CCX 2.19.
Truss elements now generate all the same element solution variables as beams with the internal solver, although they are redundant and mostly zero.
Bonded contact uses finer triangulation of element faces giving greater accuracy, especially with curved faces.

Meshing tools
"Project onto surface" to fit one mesh onto another.
Meshing tools harmonized and improved.
Extrude nodes to line elements.
Extrude normal direction is more accurate for curved elements.
"Delete unused nodes" doesn’t delete the reference node of node-surface coupling.

UI
Menus and toolbars work on the first click when the window is not already in focus.
Add/remove surfaces from linked face selections.
lb/ft^3 density unit added.
Configurable default meshing parameters.
More mouse button options for navigation.
Reverse zoom option applies to mouse button zoom as well as mouse wheel.
Removed Mouse Zoom, Pan and Rotate buttons.
Selection mode buttons moved out of graphics area. An option is there to revert to the old way.
Stress linearization lines are all shown together and without end disks but they can be individually suppressed. Selecting one in the outline tree highlights it.
Plate mesh, Quick square and Quick cube select the newly created elements or nodes depending on what selection mode is active.
Bonded contact no longer displays visualization with lines and circles because it was slow and unclear.
Option to show all materials in one branch of the outline tree.
Removed option to disable "Highlight nodes on mouseover".
Displacement constraints show more details in the outline tree.

Files
Export solution as .PVD and .VTU files for Paraview.
Saving as .stl prompts for units instead of always using meters.

API
Open files
Create solution field variables
Named selections
Identify nodes of element faces
Custom __str__ and __repr__ methods in FaceId and Vector classes so str() is more useful.
nodes, faces and elements selected by mouse picking are returned in the picking order.

Bug fixes
Multiple instances started at the same time used the same temporary directory and caused DirectoryNotFound error.
If the solution contained more elements than the model, it would omit components and named selections.
Could not open a .unv file with an element set containing element ID 0.
Faces selections linked to STEP files were identified by their geometry instead of their ID. Now it only does that if IDs fail.
Others

disla

Thank you very much once again Victor!!. Nice Job.

Let me ask you something, ¿How does the Regular Time Points work for the Nonlinear Solver?. It seems to reset the given values each time I run the analysis.

Thanks

Victor

It needs 3 values - start time, end time, and increment size. Perhaps I need to make that clearer somehow.

mmartin

Congratulations Victor

Sebastianmaklary

Congratulations on the new release.

Could you elaborate a bit on the "CCX updated to 2.19 with source code that includes all required MKL files" part?
It is still the Spooles solver that's inkluded as far as I can tell, as it is what runs when I run nonlinear static CCX in the new install or am I not using it right?

Also, with the distributing node-surface coupling removed, does that mean that there's no way of placing a remote force on a surface without making it rigid?
I haven't needed yet it in the time I've used Mecway but when I used ANSYS previously, I often used flexible remote forces, which as far as I've understood is equivalent to a force applied to a node that has a distributing node-surface coupling to the relavant surface.

Sergio

Nice update Victor!

Related to @Sebastianmaklary comment, would be nice to have the option so choose the solver (Spooles, Pardiso, Pastix...) when the user select CalculiX as solver, and in the Options windows a place to specify the number of cores for paralelization.

Victor

@Sebastianmaklary Only Spooles, sorry. The MKL files are just to make compiling it with that easier.

*DISTRIBUTING seems to give wrong results in some cases so I don't want to include it. You can make a remote force using moment applied to the faces which gets distributed in a similar way.

JohnM

Nice job as always.

Looking forward to the new features in the API, I think there will be a fatigue calculator in Mecway's future with those new functions

I'm finding the new time output time points to be very useful, but I think I'll have a few sticky cases to share with you soon. It seems I can affect convergence by changing the output options.

I'm glad you've elevated project and have improved some of the mesh tools functionality. I know this kind of meshing is old school but these are very underrated functions and very useful.

Thanks for including some of the last minute requests!

Sebastianmaklary

@Victor, Fine about the solver, I'll just copy files like I did with version 14.

If distributed node-surface coupling gives the wrong results, then of course we shouldn't use that but it's just nicer to not have to calculate the magnitude of the moment when applying a force at a remote point. I hope that it will make a return at some point.

Victor

@Sebastianmaklary I forgot to mention, you can re-enable *DISTRIBUTING in Tools -> Labs.

Appreciate the feedback @JohnM

prop_design

hi victor,

1) i'm still hoping for a delete all option on the solution results. this would allow me to switch from nl stress to modal analysis a lot easier. delete all would also remove custom formulas.

2) also still hoping to have what mecway used to do. which was put all possible results for a given setup. if not by default, an option. so if you right click on solution you would see delete all and add all possible results. hope that makes sense. it's a real hassle to add something then solve and find it's not supported. another way might be to only show supported results in the first place. so there would be no option to add something that won't run.

3) also would be nice to include more of the ccx analysis types. nonlinear stress stiffening modal. nonlinear stress stiffening modal with coriolis are two that come to mind. i can do them by adding cards, but it would be nice if they were in the analysis options area.

4) there is a glitch of some sort with viewing rotating mode shapes. so adding coriolis isn't really useful right now.

5) also handling more of the ccx results with regards to modal and coriolis. there are results in ccx output files that mecway doesn't look at.

anthony

Victor

I've updated the beta to release candidate link at the top which will be the final v15 if there are no new problems found.

Sebastianmaklary

@Victor The "relative to previous" option when placing individual nodes by coordinates has dissappeared in the beta 3 version of mecway 15.
Is this intentional or a bug?

Victor

Intentional. Hopefully Move/copy serves that purpose instead.

ddraht

Thank you for creating regular updates. The program is simply great. :-)

However, I would still like the bonded display, otherwise I have no way of recognizing the link.

Best regards

Sergio

I agree with @ddraht , since we lost the visual representation of the bonded contact take more time to find out every pair of contact in case that they are several. Also for the node/surface/element selector, could it be moved to the menu area, but in the right position? In that way all the mechanical memory of were are the buttons would not be broken as is the case today, all the tools were moved three positions!

Victor

@ddraht, I'll reinstate bonded contact symbols of some sort in the next version, which won't be so far away this time because I'm changing to smaller and more frequent updates.

@Sergio. The button placement is a tricky one since on the right is not grouped with similar functions. Perhaps if I hear a lot of complaints I'll add it as an option. You can still set to the old way through Tools -> Options -> General -> Selection buttons in graphics area.

disla

In the same line as @Sergio and regarding the buttons position, I would suggest moving the run analysis button farther from the save button. I have accidentally end up re-running a long analysis instead of saving the results many times.

Victor

The last RC version is now the final 15.0 release.

Thanks to everyone for providing feedback and extra thanks to Germán Bresciano for maintaining the Spanish versions of the manual and tutorials linked at the top of here https://mecway.com/product.html

kennethfugate

@Sergio and @disla, I've hit the run button by mistake many times myself when saving. It hurts if it was a long run that just got erased by starting a run.

prop_design

Just tried v15 for the first time. I definitely like the old way of having the selection buttons in the graphics window. They are easier to get to there and much easier to see. I'm glad there is an option to toggle the old way in the settings. Please don't remove that option.

prop_design

Hi Victor,

For v16 would it be possible to have a setting for angular velocity input and output. When I apply a centrifugal load it always defaults to rad/s. I have to manually switch it to rpm. I do this a lot, so it would be nice to have it default to rpm or at least remember that it was switched to rpm for the next time. Also, in the modal analysis output. It lists Hz and rad/s. I have to convert that manually to rpm. So basically, if you input rpm as ang vel the mode would report Hz and rpm. Or just report all three; Hz, rad/s, and rpm.

Another thing that would be useful is to upgrade the Netgen 6 mesh option to Netgen 6.2. It seems to work a lot better. The two versions of Netgen in Mecway won't mesh my parts. However, the newer versions of Netgen can. So they must have changed something. Perhaps something even more useful would be to just point to the folder for the Netgen version you have installed and Mecway would use that version. That way you wouldn't have to keep upgrading Mecway. So it would work similarly to how you have gmsh implemented. That would be my preferred method. It's nice to upgrade CCX and gmsh myself. However, I can't do that with Netgen.

Hope those requests make sense.

Anthony

Victor

I'll fix that bug of not updating rpm from centrifugal force.

Not sure about including rpm for frequency results just because it's a bit more work.

I've had to make some changes to Netgen so Mecway can interface with it, so it won't work properly if you replace it with another version.

prop_design

thanks victor,

i overlooked one thing. in the table it only shows hz. where as on screen it shows hz and rad/s. so another area to look at would be the table. maybe have an option for which units or report all three. hz, rad/s, rpm.