Product Information

Version 13 of LUSAS Mechanical Engineering Analysis Products

User Interface Enhancements

• The standard Windows interrupt keys can be used to interrupt the redraw and meshing processes.
• Expressions are evaluated in all input fields.
• Dynamic model rotation in the primary model axes is improved.
• Multiple treeview frames allow easier manipulation of model data.
• The definition and manipulation of groups has been improved to enable groups to be created directly from the advanced selection filter. In addition, groups may now be created from geometric and material assignments when processing results.
• Improved graphing enables the graph attributes to be edited and new graph data to be added.
• Improved animation enables animation to be resized and saved as AVI files for display in other Windows applications.
• Improved results display allows results values to be displayed on selected nodes or elements, providing fine control over the display of values, by ensuring values are only displayed at the required locations on the model. In addition the number of significant figures, font and orientation of values may be defined.
• Improved contour annotation enables the contour key title to be changed, the number of significant figures in the contour key to be defined and the size of the contour key to be adjusted.

Section Property Calculator

• The arbitrary section property calculator enables the section properties to be computed for any open or closed section and stored in a local or network section library for future use. Section property calculation is now faster and includes torsional constant and shear area values.

Customisation Tools

• Improvements to customisation tools allow for quick and easy construction of standard modelling problems and allow you to create your own dialogs and wizards using Visual Basic. These tools also allow you to exchange data with standard Windows applications.

Improved von-Mises and Hoffman Models

• The performance of the pressure dependant modified von-Mises and Hoffman material models have been improved. These models are designed to simulate material behaviour in which the yield is dependent on pressure and the plasticity is anisotropic. The improvements use a work hardening approach which allow the models to work in conjunction with creep, damage and viscoelasticity.

Configuration Utility

• A utility program is provided to simplify the installation and editing of software licencing keys, setting-up locations of temporary files and setting LUSAS Solver memory usage parameters.

Fast Multifrontal Solvers

Two new Fast Multifrontal Solvers are available as a single product option for speeding up the processing of large analysis problems. In trials, the new Fast Multifrontal Direct Solver provides solutions many times faster the standard Frontal Solver. Similarly, the new Fast Multifrontal Block Lanczos Eigensolver solves natural frequency, vibration and buckling problems with real, symmetric matrices and returns results up many times faster than the standard Frontal Eigensolvers.

Fast Iterative Solver

The Fast Iterative Solver has been substantially enhanced to be more robust and provide faster solutions. It uses less disk space than the Direct Solvers and for well conditioned 3D solid problems with a single loadcase the iterative solver can, in some cases, provide faster solutions than the direct solvers.

Licence Management

A new network (floating) licence capability enables a LUSAS licence to be used on any selected computer in a network. The licence may be locked to specific computers in the network or allowed to run on any computer in the network.

Interfacing

The MMI (material model interface) which enables users to compile their own material models into the LUSAS Solver is now available on PC platforms.

Adaptive Meshing

An adaptive meshing facility has been added to LUSAS Analyst for the 2D continuum element. The wizard automatically runs the adaptive process on the current model with specified parameters until results within a specified error are achieved or until the maximum number of iterations is exceeded. Adaptivity error results can be contoured to show the quality of the mesh used.

Specific LUSAS Composite enhancements

• The composite failure criteria has been improved to allow failure strengths to be modified from the Treeview.
• An option to define symmetric composite laminates to reduce the data input required is now provided.
• Composite brick elements HX16L/PN12L have been improved to enable through thickness effects to be computed more accurately.
• New thermal composite elements HF16C/PF12C which are compatible with HX16L/PN12L are now provided to enable thermal structural coupled problems to be solved.
• Improved results processing to enable principal stress vectors to be displayed on composite layers

Improvements to Combinations and Envelopes

These include the ability to tabulate combination and envelope data in a table where it can be viewed, modified or copied and pasted into other windows packages. Combinations and envelopes may now be made up from any loadcase, combination or envelope data. In addition, enveloping and combinations may be carried out with reference to a single results quantity such that all associated values represent the coincident effects. With the use of positive and negative factors, combinations may now be assembled which automatically adopt the correct factor for adverse or relieving effects. This enables the number of combinations and envelopes required to model a structure to be substantially reduced.

Improvements for Contact Analysis

• Consistent tangent for 3D contact which provides faster convergence of contact problems with or without friction.
• Separate Contact Iterative Loops enable the equilibrium contact conditions to be established before the material nonlinearities are computed.
• Contact Cushioning improves the convergence characteristics of difficult contact problems.
• Improved slideline results processing includes slide results in values, contours and vectors layers and enables graphs of the contact parameters to be created either as a time history or a variation on the contact surface.

Other General Improvements

Over 400 other general improvements have been made to the LUSAS range of producsts. A few of the more significant of these changes are listed:

• Upgraded plate elements to enable the plate element orientation to be computed independent of the surface definition.
• Joint meshing with stiffness /unit length or area to enable line and surface supports to be defined to accommodate foundation supports. Viscous control can be added to load case control
• Interface to LUSAS system variables
• Definition of initial velocity loading
• Tabulation of deformed model with specified factor
• Transfer of mass participation factors to LUSAS Modeller
• Attribute visualisation for thermal problems
• V13 LUSAS Modeller support for V12 LUSAS Solver

Additional product information

Find out more about these particular software products:

LUSAS Analyst | User Interface | Latest features

LUSAS Composite     | User Interface | Latest features

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