Version 18.0

Victor

Mecway 18.0 is now available at the link below. As usual, it's a free update for all existing license holders.

https://mecway.com/download/mecway180.msi


Changes:

GUI
Alternative option for the quantization of colors for banded contour plots that includes the maximum and minimum specified colors.
Viridis and Turbo color map options.
Graphical symbols for truss, spring, damper, and resistor elements.
“Delete all” item in Solution menu.
Removed Close button from CCX solver window.
Stress in element coordinates has a note (beam/shell/solid) to help show that’s where beam stress is.
Error messages for missing 2nd moment of area and density on beams.
Removed "Field variables that it depends on exist – YES/NO/UNKNOWN" message.
Disabled fluid analysis types. You can enable them through the labs menu for now.
The Spanish language manual is now included in the installer. Thanks, as always, to Germán Bresciano for translating it.

CCX
Circular bar with CCX uses PIPE instead of CIRC. This fixes bug 35.
Pressure on beam and truss element end faces with the CCX solver.
Line pressure for the CCX solver, but no axial (U) component for beams.
Element orientation enabled for beams in nonlinear dynamic response 3D with CCX.
Removed UTF-8 BOM from .inp files that it generates.
Can read data sets from .frd files with more than 6 entities, such as SDV for the plastic strain tensor.

API
solution.interpolate() to find a value at an arbitrary point in a solid mesh. Also available in the Solution menu.

Bug fixes:
Gradient contour plot colors were too bright.
Component colors were too bright. Colors from old files are converted to maintain a similar appearance.
E014534 when importing a .liml file with a meshed STEP file into itself.
Free version node limit error message was hidden behind window with internal solver. Now it’s a solver message.
Slow importing/generating solutions with formulas.

prop_design

wow that was fast. i'm excited about the delete all option and the slow importing solution fix. i was still getting to know v17, lol.

thanks for v18 though.

disla

Much, much faster.
It is instantly noticeable.
Thanks once again for the update.

JohnM

Nice. look forward to that API add. that's the door to co-simulation.

prop_design

Just opened a model I made in v17 with v18. The new mass and damper graphics are awesome. Very nice improvement.

prop_design

there seems to be one problem. the v17 files, when opened in v18, don't have the configurations right. what was suppressed/unsuppressed seems to be all messed up. so i have to redo all the configurations, solve, and save again. i should say that all the files have multiple configurations. i'm not sure about a file with just one configuration.

Victor

Could you send me an example file with the configuration problem? I just tried one with two configurations and the suppressed things were the same as in v17.

prop_design

Thanks for checking into that Victor. I think it was my mistake. The folders, filenames, and configs that I used were confusing me. I'm added config names to the files, rather than use the default names. That way, it's clear what the config was used for. I had multiple analysis types in one file, with the results cleared. Reopening the files, weeks later, left me confused.

3rav

Since the ccx source code is official on github (https://github.com/Dhondtguido/CalculiX), can you add yours "out-of-core" option for PARDISO solver via pull request?

Sergio

The new spring element visual representation is awesome! I though that would be visible only in preprocessing, but is also visible and deformable in postprocessing, really really beautifull and usefull to better understanding.

Coud be added something similar for rigid body?

Victor

@3rav OK once I figure out how to compile it and use Github :P