MSC Software Corporation today announced the new release of Marc 2014, which is relied upon by product manufactures for nonlinear and multiphysics simulations of engineered products ranging from automotive parts to rubber components to sophisticated medical and consumer electronic devices.
With intensifying safety and performance standards in product design, engineers need virtual test solutions that can accurately predict real-world behaviors. To address these challenges, the Marc 2014 release introduces a new 3-D crack propagation capability to more accurately predict failure in products. The release also delivers enhanced nonlinear contact, improved modeling for electromagnetics, and easier CAD defeaturing and mesh generation, to name a few.
Highlights of this release include:
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New Capabilities Improve Accuracy of Crack Propagation Studies
- The Marc 2014 release offers a new capability for high cycle fatigue that helps engineers determine whether cracks will propagate, and reach a critical length after so many cycles. A small number of representative cycles are modeled in Marc, after which Paris' law is used to calculate the number of cycles before damage. This is critical in safety related industries, such as aerospace and energy, where it is important to develop maintenance schedules. This release also offers an improved method for scaling the crack growth along a crack front and between separate cracks, which helps improve the accuracy of the solution.
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Enhanced Nonlinear Contact Improves Convergence
- Improved defaults are designed to achieve convergence in fewer iterations with less user intervention when using segment-to-segment contact. Implementation of a friction model is also updated to improve convergence and accuracy of the contact solutions. These capabilities may help achieve faster solutions in contact models like assembly models, seal installation, and manufacturing simulations.
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Pressure Cavity Helps Analyze Bottles and Containers
- The pressure cavity capability, which is available for planar, axisymmetric, and 3-D, has been expanded so that it supports not only a perfect gas law, but also a nearly incompressible fluid. This enhancement helps solve a new class of problems like water filled bottles, hydromounts, seals, and other containers. Engineers can analyze performance of the fluid-filled containers without explicitly modeling the fluid.
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Improved Modeling for Electromagnetics
- The Electromagnetic capabilities have been substantially enhanced by introducing the circuit approach so that either current or voltages may be applied to the system. Combining with Marc's advanced thermal and structural capabilities this facilitates the solution of problems ranging from solenoids to induction heating of rolling processes. The electromagnetic capabilities may be used for other low-frequency applications as well.
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User Interface Improvements for Ease of Use and Efficiency
- Mentat, the user interface of Marc, has been enhanced to improve productivity with the following capabilities:
- A new method has been introduced to allow import of geometry from most CAD packages. Geometric operations may be performed on the native Parasolid geometry. Removal of small features like holes, fillets, chamfers, small surfaces, and small bodies can be achieved with defeaturing, which facilitates mesh generation required for simulation. Features can also be offset or moved after the CAD model has been imported into Mentat.
- New automatic meshing capability to support the three types of Parasolid bodies namely, wires, sheets and volumes has been introduced. Either fully automatic approach or a flexible, user controlled meshing is available to mesh solids with lower- or higher-order shell or tetrahedral elements. Meshing of complex assemblies can be easily and quickly performed incorporating dimensional and curvature information. The model can be directly used for a contact simulation.
