FEMAP Version 6 represents a significant step forward for the FEMAP product line.
Version 5 introduced Dual Engine Geometry ModelingTM, and version 6 extends these modeling
tools using your choice of ACIS or Parasolid geometry engines. Curve and surface
manipulation tools, such as copying, trimming, and even exploding a solid to its basic
components, are now available. With Version 6 a solid can be exploded, individual surfaces
trimmed, and then stitched back together. New import and export support for STEP AP203
solid entities enables a new method to access geometry from CAD systems that do not
support ACIS, Parasolid, or have poor IGES. Dramatic new capabilities, including
midsurfacing, hex meshing, and a beam section property calculator are also now provided
with FEMAP Version 6.
With Version 6, the FEMAP product line has been streamlined. There are now only two levels
of functionality, FEMAP (base) and FEMAP Professional. The two mid-level products, FEMAP
ACIS Modeler and FEMAP Parasolid Modeler have been discontinued with Version 6. For
details on upgrading these products to FEMAP Professional, please contact ESP or your
local FEMAP distributor.
The enhancements found in v6 fall in the following six major categories:
FEMAP v6 provides extensive tools for automatic, semi-automatic, and manual generation of midsurfaces. With the popularity of solid modelers, more solid models of relatively thin-walled parts are being created. It is important for these types of parts to reduce the geometry so you can easily create a plate mesh. For thin-walled parts, a plate mesh will solve significantly faster than a solid element model, and in many cases will proved a more accurate solution, especially for dynamic analyses. Therefore, it is very advantageous to reduce the solid geometry into a form that is easily meshed with plates.
FEMAP v6 provides the tools to create midsurfaces from these solids, which can then can be
readily meshed with plate elements. Midsurfacing techniques have been implemented just
like most other technology in FEMAP. There are automatic commands to create midsurface
models, as well as manual capability which can be implemented when the automatic commands
fail to do the entire job.
Hexahedral Meshing
A new hexahedral mesher has been added to the extensive FEMAP meshing capability. FEMAP v5
introduced a state-of-the-art tetrahedral mesher with regard to speed and element quality.
FEMAP v6 now implements a hexahedral mesher for solid geometry. The hex mesher requires
more geometry preparation than the tet mesher, but it can produce high quality hex meshes
on a number of different solid shapes.
The geometry preparation for the hex mesher may require you to subdivide solids into
simpler regions. FEMAP v6 provides new functions to perform these commands quickly. Many
parts that are not hex-meshable as a whole can be readily separated into regions that can
be hex meshed with a few slices. Again, FEMAP provides both the automatic capability, as
well as manual capability to manipulate the geometry when the automatic methods do not
work the first time.
Core Enhancements
This section details six significant new capabilities in FEMAP. These are:
Polygon and Freehand graphical selection.
Dynamic Rotation in Render mode with one mouse click
Beam Section Property Calculation
Easy Contact Modeling
Modeling Interface Connections
Scripting Language Additions
In prior version of FEMAP, graphically selecting multiple entities from a screen area was
limited to Box or Circle shapes. FEMAP v6 adds Polygon and Freehand capability. You can
simply click on multiple locations and FEMAP will select inside the polygon you form, or
you can use the Freehand option to continuously move your mouse to select an area. With
these additional picking modes, graphical selection has become much easier.
Access to dynamic rotation has also become easier. When you are in Render graphics mode,
you can simply click on the left mouse button and drag the cursor. This will dynamically
rotate the model. The Alt, Ctrl, and Shift keys can also be used, just like in standard
dynamic rotation, to access Rotate Z, Pan, or Zoom, respectively. This enables you to
quickly rotate your model without switching to different modes.
A beam section property calculator has also been added for v6. Previous version of FEMAP
had a calculator for some properties, but v6 provides a complete section property
generator which even include neutral axis offsets from the shear center and warping, for
both standard and arbitrary shapes. In combination with the new display of beam element
sections, you can instantly obtain visual verification of the beam orientation with
respect to the rest of your model.
Version 6 includes new easy to use contact modeling. You can create contact segments from
geometry or FEA entities. These segments can be placed in contact with one another via the
new Contact Element, and the characteristics of the contact defined in a property. General
contact modeling is supported for ABAQUS, LS-DYNA3D, and MARC.
Automatic methods of connecting meshes with rigid elements, line elements, or constraint
equations for v6 has also been added. These capabilities are very important for modeling
interfaces, especially for those programs which do not support general contact. You can
even automatically unzip a mesh and either keep it disconnected, or attach it
back together with rigid, gap, or spring elements.
The FEMAP scripting language has also been greatly extended. Previously, only view and
output data could be manipulated through the scripting language. Now, many of the
preprocessing commands are available as well. The overall capability and the number of
functions in the scripting language have more than doubled in size. For more specifics on
the new API, please see documents api_ref and lang_ref contained in the directory where
you installed FEMAP (if you are on the PC, these files will be MS Word documents).
Solver and Geometry Interfaces
Several completely new interfaces have been added. FEMAP can now directly export to and
import result from LS-DYNA3D and MARC. In addition, FEMAP v6 extends support for ABAQUS to
include EXPLICIT. Additional support for NASTRAN response spectrum and ANSYS random
analysis have been added.
FEMAP v6 can now import STEP AP203 solids and convert it to a Parasolid solid. Similarly,
any Parasolid solid can be exported in STEP format. FEMAP v6 also updates the version of
Parasolid (v10) and ACIS (v4.2) used by the internal solid modeling engines.
Postprocessing
There have been significant additions made to the Postprocessing capability of FEMAP. The
two most significant are new contour options and freebody display.
FEMAP, through the new Contour Options menu, has the ability to produce several new styles
of elemental contours. There are two main options to element contours, smart
averaging and no averaging. With smart averaging you can
select several options on averaging results at topological and material breaks in your
model. Additionally, you can view Top and Bottom stresses of plates, as well as solid
element contours on the same plot.
Freebody displays have also been implemented. As part of this enhancement, FEMAP can now
import the Grid Force Point Balance from NASTRAN. These values, along with other applied
and reaction loads, can be displayed in FEMAP for the entire model or for a subset. You
can even use the different viewing options to check for force leaking in your
model. Additionally, you can automatically create loads from the force balance for a given
subset of your model. This can be very useful if you want to perform a separate analysis
on just this subset.
Other postprocessing enhancements include viewing of up to three vectors for Contour
Vectors on the same display, discrete colors levels for contours in render mode, and
dynamic rotation of animations when in render mode.
Other Improvements
The Other Improvements section simply details improvements or additions to FEMAP which
were not mentioned in the previous sections. They are separated into three main
categories:
Geometry
Model (Elements, Mesh, and Loading)
Graphics, Memory Management, and Libraries.
The geometry section provides information on many of the solid model manipulation tools
that have been added to FEMAP. The Model section describes element formulations in FEMAP,
new meshing techniques, mesh attributes, and updating loads. The last section provides an
overview of improved performance and new libraries in FEMAP, including a new material
type.