What's new in Altair SimSolid 2021.0
Altair EmployeeSimSolid is a structural simulation solver that is based on a new technology, which operates directly on original, full-fidelity CAD geometry without the need to create a mesh and provides design feedback in minutes. It is large model capable that can run assemblies with 1000's of parts on a desktop-class computer.
SimSolid already supports a number of solutions (linear, nonlinear, thermal and dynamics) and has a library of high-fidelity connections that enables getting decision-able feedback on large assemblies while working at the speed of design.
With the release of version 2021.0, SimSolid further expands its portfolio and this article focuses on some of the key capabilities and improvements.
Fatigue Analysis
SimSolid now supports both uniaxial and multiaxial fatigue assessment using S-N (stress-life) or E-N (strain-life) methods. Stress-life method works well for predicting fatigue performance when stress levels in structure are in the elastic range. Under such cyclical loading conditions, structures can withstand large number of loading cycles and hence also known as high-cycle fatigue. When cyclic strains extend into plastic strain range, the fatigue endurance typically decreases and this is characterized by low-cycle fatigue.
There are a number of mean stress corrections for both tensile and shear crack growth currently supported. Mean stress corrections account for the effect of non-zero mean stresses.
SimSolid supports a unique 2-step fatigue assessment where several static load cases can be created by simply importing the hard-points and fatigue analysis can be performed by importing the duty-cycle. SimSolid makes fatigue assessment possible with just two files and two mouse-button clicks, see below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv65xMA0QYs
Stress Linearization
Elastic stress field can be decomposed through thickness into equivalent membrane, bending and peak stress in linear static analysis. Failure criteria can also be defined for linearized local stress.
You can access linearized stress function through the Pick info tab on the analysis workbench. You can draw stress linearized segments normal to surface or define them by picking end points of the segment.
Orthotropic Material
Orthotropic materials are now supported. The material properties for these materials differ along mutually orthogonal axes. You can add them to the material database by choosing the orthotropic material type.
You can define orthotropic material orientation in the context menu for a selected part in the Assembly workbench.
Execute SimSolid functions using a JavaScript file
You can now run SimSolid in batch mode using a JavaScript file. This capability is only available for the full version of SimSolid. With this mode, you can run various operations by executing a JavaScript file through command line arguments. The JavaScript file can also be parameterized and executed using command line arguments. Modal analysis with regular connections is currently supported. Applying boundary conditions is not currently supported.
Take a look at the video below from a colleague of mine, Simon Zwingert who uses this new workflow in SimSolid to improve the design of a milling machine by performing design exploration studies using SimSolid.
Automatic repair of thin sheets containing self-penetrations or abnormal thickness
SimSolid brings in geometry as a faceted volume and this representation can sometimes cause issues such as self-penetration for extremely complex sheet-metal with small thickness. We now have a solution for this, SimSolid can analyze and repair such sheet to remove any self-intersection. Additionally, SimSolid can also repair sheets with abnormal thickness, i.e., thickness different than the nominal thickness to maintain uniform thickness through out the part geometry. This functionality can be accessed via Find part self intersections tab on Assembly > Geometry defects.
I hope this gives you insight into some of the key new developments. Oh BTW it also supports parallel installation of SimSolid to have more than one version installed on a single system. There are many more such capabilities in SimSolid 2021.0 that can be accessed from Altair One.
View the release notes for the complete list of new capabilities and download Altair SimSolid 2021.0 here.