What's New in 2021.2

Have a look at our Release Webinar for a quick introduction to the new features:

Features & Functionalities:

Material & Failure Criteria

In this release we are introducing two new material options: 3D Transversely Isotropic and 3D Orthotropic material. These materials can be used to input directional material behaviour information and therefore calculate with a directional dependency.

With the support for the new materials, new Failure Criteria were implemented to take these new material behaviours into account. The already existing von Mises Failure Criterion is now expanded by the newly integrated Tsai Hill and Tsai Wu Failure Criteria.
Furthermore, we are introducing the FFF Thumb Rule as a Failure Criterion. This Criterion is a short cut to take directional dependencies into consideration without inputting all the material information required for the 3D Transversely Isotropic and 3D Orthotropic material. The Isotropic material input is used for the FFF Thumb Rule and only the stress information regarding the axis direction is adjusted by the user to lessen or strengthen the material in this direction.

Here a short overview of the newly introduced Failure Criteria:

• FFF Thumb Rule:

  • simplified directional dependency

  • Isotropic material with one direction adjusted to a lower/higher stress value

  • FFF stands for Fused Filament Fabrication, a very widely used additive manufacturing process for polymers by companies such as Stratasys or Markforged. More information here.

• Directional Dependency (Tsai Hill):

  • mainly for a 3D Transversely Isotropic material

  • considers the Tensile Strengths axial and in plane

• Directional Dependency (Tsai Wu):

  • mainly for 3D Orthotropic material

  • considers axial and in plane Tensile Strengths and Compression Strengths.

A Manufacturing Method is now introduced for easier combination and selection of the material and Failure Criteria. The user can choose between AM Generic, Metal AM and FFF. Depending on the chosen Manufacturing Method, the selection of material and Failure Criteria is then limited to the available options for the specific Manufacturing Method. More information regarding the Manufacturing Methods here.

Optimization goal: Safety Factor

Along with the new Failure Criteria we also included a new optimisation goal based on a Safety Factor. The stress goal for the von Mises Failure Criterion is kept unchanged, but for all other Failure Criteria, the user can only use Safety Factor as an input. This introduction of the Safety Factor results from the mathematical formulas of the Tsai Hill and Tsai Wu Failure Criteria.

Facet-To-NURBS Enhancements

Major improvements have been made to the NURBS-creation tool. The partitioning strategy of the tool was significantly enhanced and results in a reduced number of NURBS-patches. Moreover, a considerable performance improvement could be achieved as well as a memory reduction when exporting the geometries. More information regarding the performance improvements here.

Optimisation (Engine):

Materials, Failure Criteria & Safety Factor

The optimisation engine now supports 3D Transversely Isotropic as well as 3D Orthotropic materials. Furthermore, the new Failure Criteria were implemented as well as the Safety Factor as the optimisation goal. This change is also a preparation step for further improvements and options regarding the choice of a Failure Criteria.

Configuration File Format Change

Further, the Configuration File format has changed from a text file to JSON file format. Further information here.

Usability Enhancements

The copy loads option is introduced as a main usability enhancement in this release. With this option it is very easy to duplicate loads that can then be easily adjusted in the Model Browser.

Fixed Bugs & Known Beta Limitations

You can find a list of our fixed bugs as well as the current known limitations here.