Version 12

Victor

Version 12.0 is now available here

https://mecway.com/download/mecway120rc.msi
https://mecway.com/download

It may be updated soon if problems are found. The final one will be on the download page.

Changes:

General
Surface refinement for STEP files.
Selecting a constraint equation in the outline tree also selects its nodes.
Formulas in the solution can include density, Young’s modulus and specific heat (not temperature dependent).
New element tool allows you to choose the component.
Invert selection tool won’t select shell edges or beam ends so it’s convenient for swapping to the opposite faces of a shell mesh.
Compatible with Gmsh 4.2.2
Move/copy tool allows formulas.
Automesh 3D with a shell mesh allows either element face to be on the outside and shows non-manifold errors graphically.
Elastic support is more accurate on corners of coarse meshes by using the average normal direction insted of each face's normal.
Bugfix: Change element shape no longer merges adjacent parts except for tri3->quad4 and tet4->hex8 subdivision.
Tresca stress renamed to “maximum shear stress × 2”.
Various bug fixes and minor UI improvements.

CCX
New solver window with convergence graph, loading converged time steps while it’s still solving, and graphical identification of nodes and elements that have errors.
Faster loading solutions.
Beam internal forces (bending moment, torsion moment, shear force, axial force).
Elastic support. Can be used in place of fixed support or frictionless support if those conflict with other constraints, or as a weak spring on unconstrained parts.
Point mass.
Constraint equations.
Cyclic symmetry for nonlinear static.

prop_design

thanks for your tireless work Victor. i look forward to trying it out.

stefanovinto

Great work Victor!

MartinB

Nice Victor!

Sergio

Usefull features as always Victor. Have tested constrain equation widget (really nice and visible, would be great something similar for rigid bodys and couplings), new element destination component, and move/copy with formulas and work ok. But the new surface refinement for step geometry doesn't work, at least on my example.

Also, the new CCX solver windows looks great but... can you explain a little how to use the new convergence graph? What we should look and how this could help to improve our simulations? In the future, is possible to add a new tab in the same window showing the summary information of the .sta file?

Best Regards

Sergio

Just trying also note that cannot set up a point refinament centered on the hole of the example:

Victor

Thanks for testing things Sergio. Both kinds of refinement work OK for me using the default meshing parameters. A couple of ways it doesn't work:

• If you specify a minimum element size in meshing parameters which conflicts with the refinement, then the minimum element size takes precedence.
  
• Surface refinement doesn't work with Gmsh.
  

In both cases, I should have made it indicate that in the UI.

Victor

About the convergence graph. The data is taken directly from the .cvg file. To be honest, I'm not exactly sure how to use it since CCX has very complicated convergence criteria but I expect that for each time step (increment), the displacement correction and residual force curves must reach very small values and number of contact elements must become constant.

For using it to inform decisions, I saw one case where the number of contact elements appeared to be converging but was so slow that CCX repeatedly gave up at 60 iterations. That was solved by increasing the number of iterations for CCX using *CONTROLS. In other cases, it might be oscillating which could be a sign that contact stiffness is too high. This picture is the PipeClip.liml sample with a very high contact stiffness compared to the normal value.




From what I can tell, the .sta file contains a subset of information in the .cvg file/graph plus increment times so I don't think it's much more useful.

Sergio

Thanks for the explanation!. I use the sta file to follow long simulations (using an external application, Tail for Windows), it gives me an idea of how much has run and how the thing is being solved. I found easier to understand than the convergence table or plot.

Victor

Version 12 is now on the download page and there have been no changes since the first post in this thread.

Extra thanks to Germán Bresciano who has written and maintained up to date Spanish language manual and tutorials documents available in the links at the top of this page https://mecway.com/product.html

Sergio

Victor, about the "cancel" button on the CCX solve window/new detailed window... should not give a warning that this will stop the simulation and not only close that window? I have stopped my simulations several times until I realize!

Victor

Oh. Yes, good idea. I'll do that for the next version.

swaraj

@Victor, If possible also provide an option for Rigid Card in the next version.

Victor

Yes, that should be coming in version 13.

Andrea

Sometimes I have to import several STEP files. For each file I have to set the meshing parameters also if are the same.
What do you think about a possibility of creating mesh criterions and to assign them for the varius components?

Sergio

@Andrea that is something that I would like as well! Very like materials, mesh parameters that can be reused.

Andrea

Material library could be usefull too! But, how is suggested by MW Manual, for materials one can create a blank files with the definition of some materials and use this file for starting a new job. For meshing parameters is not possible because you haven't components and meshing parameters are variable.
At least could be usefull the possibility of assign the same criterion to all components

Victor

Thanks both of you for the suggestion about some kind of reusable meshing parameters.

There's already slightly smoother material library under Labs -> Import from library. It enables buttons for Assign material from library and Save to library.

Sergio

Nice trick! I found "assign material from library", but were is "save to library"?

Edited... is in the material window!

JohnM

Looks like the Library might be getting out of Labs soon