Siemens PLM Software What’s new in Femap 11.1 Enhancing the productivity of finite element analysts Benefits Summary creation and manipulation as well as • Faster model manipulation Femap™ software version 11.1 from meshing and FE model management. with improved graphics Siemens PLM Software is the latest release Version 11.1 extends the scope of performance of the standalone finite element modeling simulation with extensions to the design (FEM) pre- and postprocessor for engineer- • Greater flexibility for optimization capability. Also, there are ing simulation and analysis. Femap can be creating models and several enhancements that strengthen used in combination with a wide variety of extending geometry Nastran integration, including support for finite element (FE) analysis solvers, includ- modeling methods pyramid elements, dynamic response out- ing the industry-leading NX™ Nastran® put and restarts. In addition, there are • Easier FE model creation software. many other customer-driven enhancements and control included in the latest version of Femap. • Faster and more flexible Geometry modeling enhancements postprocessing Non-manifold add • Extended analysis discipline The non-manifold add command added in with enhanced NX Nastran the previous release of Femap introduced integration a method of Boolean adding sheet solids together to form a general body. In Femap version 11.1, this capability has been Femap 11.1 improves user productivity extended to allow user control of a distance through an extension of the results file or separation tolerance facilitating the attach capability that became available in a Boolean add process. prior release. Graphics performance has Non-manifold add multiple bodies also been improved significantly, particu- Imported geometry often contains larly through more efficient graphics discontinuities, which in turn will create a storage and support of OpenGL 4.2 geome- discontiguous mesh if not corrected. In try shader functionality. In addition, there Femap 11.1, you can use the non-manifold are enhancements that improve geometry www.siemens.com/plm/femap FEMAP What’s new in Femap 11.1 Features add command in the geometry/surfaces IGES export • Use of graphics memory menu to add multiple bodies together and Export of IGES geometry has been and OpenGL 4.x create a single general body. The algorithm extended to include points and curves. functionality supports starts with the first and adds each next FE modeling enhancements improved graphical data closest body one at a time controlled by a access and graphics tolerance. Incremental checking validates Model merge performance the resulting Parasolid body after each The model merge capability that allows step; if it doesn’t meet specifications, it entities to be copied between models when • Extended geometry creation rolls back and skips that particular solid. multiple models are open in Femap has methods When it finishes, the free edges are high- been enhanced for version 11.1. You now • Enhanced FE model lighted so you can see what has been have complete control over the selection of merging and meshing connected. entity types to be merged as well as entity capabilities renumbering. You also have control over Solid sweep the grouping and model transformation • Extended results data file New solid sweep and solid sweep between and orientation. You can transfer attachment capability, commands have been added in Femap 11.1 frequently used materials, properties charting and free body to create solid geometry. With the solid and layups from existing models to new capabilities sweep command, it’s now possible to models. sweep a surface along a set of curves to • Greater support for design create a new solid. The solid sweep optimization and restarts in between command can be used to create a NX Nastran new solid between surfaces or faces of existing solids and can effectively create new solid geometry to fill a gap in the model. Tetrahedral meshing The solid tetrahedral auto meshing capabil- ity has been enhanced to force multiple elements through a thickness to ensure that the model will yield more accurate results. Midsurface extraction Femap 11.1 uses the latest version of The midsurface extraction capability has the tetra-mesher, which creates a mesh been enhanced to create a much more in which most badly deformed sliver robust method of determining midsurfaces tetrahedrons are eliminated. in thin solid models by taking advantage of Meshing toolbox recent developments in the Parasolid New controls have been added to help modeling kernel. orientate and align the pad (including pad Surface from mesh and washer combination) detailed meshing The surface from mesh command intro- feature in the meshing toolbox. duced in Femap 11.0 has been enhanced to create more robust surface geometry for ruled surfaces. FEMAP Postprocessing Results files A more efficient method of accessing results data was introduced in the previous release of Femap, and has been extended with version 11.1 to include XDB format results files commonly created by using NX and MSC Nastran solv- ers. Support also extends to user-created comma separated variable (CSV) files, which allow significantly enhanced user set control. You can now also export results data to a binary .FNO format and include the model data or a reduced model of just the area of interest. This can act as an aid to help demonstrate and communicate the analysis results. Charting Mesh offset The Femap charting capability now includes a new data You can now copy and offset a mesh along element normals series type, value versus value, which allows plotting of to create identical meshes offset a specified distance away quantities, such as applied force versus displacement at a from the original mesh. specified location. The chart data series dialog has been Graphics enhancements reorganized to display only relevant items, and the user now has more control over fonts, labels and colors for chart Graphics architecture entities. Also, rendering has been improved when copying Graphics performance in Femap version 11.1 is improved charts to the clipboard at non-screen resolutions. through more efficient storage with a single copy of graph- ics entity data existing within a model. This results in Free body significant improvements in model regeneration through The free body capability has been enhanced in Femap 11.1 the <Ctrl-G> command and dynamic rotation. as the user has the added ability to force free body calcula- tions to consider only applied, constraint and multipoint Further graphics performance improvements come from the constraint forces from Nastran’s GPFORCE data block. There added support of OpenGL 4.2 geometry shader functional- is also a new validation tool to check that all requested ity. Essentially, this moves the workload from the central values exist in the result set, and the free body listing tools processing unit (CPU) to the graphics processing unit (GPU), have been updated to provide more relevant output. taking advantage of local graphics memory, and dramati- cally reducing the volume of data required. NX Nastran support Femap version 11.1 can be used to take advantage of Pyramid element OpenGL 4.x graphics, which are much faster and use Femap 11.1 supports the pyramid element for read or write significantly less graphics memory. operations. Models containing existing pyramid elements can be imported and exported, but element creation Visibility remains a manual task. The underlying code for the visibility dialog has been updated to speed up population of the property, material Restarts and group selection boxes. Support of Nastran’s restart technology has been enhanced in Femap 11.1. You can opt to perform read only restarts, Load expansion and specify the model version and subcase identification Load expansion from geometry to a mesh has been (ID) from which to restart. enhanced for elemental face loads on surfaces such as pressure, heat flux, convection and radiation. Load Design optimization expansion times for large models with many loaded Femap 11.1 includes support of design optimization with surfaces are reduced from minutes to seconds. normal modes analysis so designs can be optimized to modify or avoid certain critical natural vibration frequencies. You can specify a mode frequency or an eigenvalue to be set up as a design constraint with an option for mode tracking. FEMAP Dynamic response output Load set combination data surface You can now request RMS Von Mises stress Femap 11.1 allows spreadsheet access to output directly for random vibration analy- the combination of existing load sets to ses. Composite ply results are available for create new linearly combined load sets. transient response so you can get stress/ Resulting load sets can be used to create strain output for individual laminae. actual scaled and combined individual loads, or create a virtual NX Nastran LOAD Load and constraint set CARD combination. You can cut and paste combination display the entire load set combination data table In Femap 11.1, you can visualize load set to and from Excel. Any updates to the load and constraint set combinations. When you combination table can either update previ- set up a new load case, such as a Nastran ously created combinations, or create new LOAD combination, or a new constraint ones. While editing the load set combina- case, such as a Nastran SPCADD/MPCADD tion table, you’ll have continual right click combination, the combined loading or access to the load summations for the con- constraint sets can be displayed. stituent sets and/or the new combined sets. Customer-driven enhancements Tools check extensions grouping A new option has been added to coincident The group generation command has nodes check that allows you to merge been enhanced to create groups according nodes with differing output coordinate to geometry T-junctions through the non- systems. manifold edge functionality. This allows easy break up of multiple geometry Options to sum forces checking have features into groups facilitating model expanded to sum all loads, loads on management.