Simcenter Femap 2021.2 will be released soon, continuing the biannual schedule of feature releases each spring and fall. Upon its release, users can visit the Support Center to download the software and generate new license files. Below, we recap the latest new enhancements and share video highlights from Siemens Digital Industries Software.
*Update – Femap 2021.2 is now available for download on Support Center.
Faceted Geometry Support and Body Mesher Technology
With this release, Femap adds support for convergent modeling, allowing users to import/export, edit, and mesh geometry composed of triangular facets alongside more traditional Parasolid boundary (B-Rep) geometry. The ability to mesh faceted geometry in Femap is possible thanks to the new Body Mesher Technology, which leverages remeshing capabilities from STAR-CCM+ to generate high-quality meshes on complex surfaces that would be challenging and tedious to mesh with traditional workflows.
Mesh quality is the primary goal of Body Meshing, and geometry simplification and idealization are not required. Nodes and elements are associated only with points, curves, and surfaces selected by the user or with existing boundary conditions, so it is important to create loads, constraints, and regions in advance.
In addition to automatic geometry cleanup, the Body Mesher Technology allows Femap to mesh STL facets of topology-optimized shapes. It also enables the new Mesh on Mesh command, which can be used to remesh selected elements to improve mesh quality and/or modify mesh density.
Mesh Control Explorer Enhancements
The Mesh Control Explorer can now be used to show edges that are adjacent to surfaces and surfaces that pierce other surfaces without having imprinted curves at the intersection locations. Once imprints are created, the Mesh Control Explorer offers the ability to create a fully connected mesh at all intersections without the need to combine surfaces with a NonManifold Add command.
JT Visualization File Export
Femap 2021.2 gives users new export options for JT visualization files, which can be used in the Teamcenter for Simulation environment or other JT collaboration tools to visualize model data and review results without the need to open an instance of Femap.
Solver Support
Beginning with Femap 2021.2, users can specify subcases for transient, frequency response, and nonlinear transient response analyses. This capability can be used to specify frequency, time step, or nonlinear parameters in different dynamic subcases or account for stress stiffening and optionally impose contact conditions using a static subcase.
This release also adds the ability to create and edit Nastran CBUSH1D elements, which are 1D spring/damper elements that support large displacements for nonlinear analysis.
Support was also extended for reading and writing the MPLAS card in Simcenter Nastran SOL 401/402 and for reading pyramid element results from MSC Nastran’s .f06 file. LS-Dyna support was added for element formulations EQ18 and EQ-18 for solid elements as well as element formulation EQ16 for shell elements.
