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Noran Engineering, Inc. in the Media
Farr
Yacht Design adds NEi
Nastran to its Suite of Structural Analysis Tools
Farr Yacht
Design (FYD) has chosen NEi Nastran to enhance
its structural analysis capabilities in the area of composites
engineering for high performance yacht design. FYD is a worldwide
leader in the design and engineering of racing yachts for major
events including the America’s Cup and Volvo Ocean Race,
as well as custom and production yachts for builders around the
globe.
“Structural
analysis is an increasingly important component of successful
racing yacht design”, comments Dave Fornaro, FYD design
engineer. “We have been utilizing FEA for several years
to validate and improve our designs. Recently we felt the need
to enhance our suite of analysis tools with more advanced capabilities
in several areas including laminated composites, non-linear surface
contact with friction and bolted joints with pre-load. After an
exhaustive review of available codes, NEi Nastran
stood out as the best choice based on its combination of advanced
capabilities, cost-effectiveness and quality technical support.”
FYD’s
first application of NEi
Nastran is for it’s next-generation of designs for
the Volvo Ocean Race, a grueling round-the-world race sailed in
fully crewed, 70 foot carbon fiber yachts capable of speeds in
excess of 40 knots. “These designs are forging new frontiers
in ocean racing,” adds Dave Fornaro. “They operate
in harsh and brutal conditions, and require a rigorous level of
structural design and analysis to ensure peak performance and
safety. We are confident that NEi
Nastran will be an excellent tool for the job and we have
been extremely satisfied with the support we have received thus
far from Noran Engineering.”
Noran
Engineering, Inc. and UGS Expand Partnership
In December,
Noran Engineering, Inc. (NEi) announced that it is entering into
an expanded partnership with UGS Corp., a leading global provider
of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services. Under
the terms of their new agreement, Noran Engineering, Inc. will
directly market, sell, and support UGS’ analysis and simulation
software FEMAP and NX Nastran. Previously, NEi marketed and sold
FEMAP in the U.S. and internationally under the NEi brand name,
NEi Nastran Modeler. NEi will continue to develop, market, sell,
and support its own line of engineering analysis software, which
includes NEi Nastran, NEiWorks and NEiFusion. The announcement
reaffirms the long standing distribution arrangement between the
two companies and signals a new initiative on wider joint collaborative
efforts to further develop and promote FEMAP as the premier pre-
and post- processing tool in the FEA global market. The companies
have agreed to leverage their unique strengths and put in place
cooperative programs that will that will enhance FEMAP’s
simulation capabilities and technical support, complement their
Nastran offerings, expand brand awareness, increase market share,
and grow sales revenue.
Events
and Trade Shows
Product
Data and Materials Technology (PDMT) Panel Meeting, January 31
– February 1 at Beau Rivage in Biloxi, Mississippi.
The
Winter PDMT panel meeting took place at the Beau Rivage Hotel
and Casino immediately following ShipTech 2007. This meeting was
very well attended as well as informative. A major theme was the
use of composites in shipbuilding. Sadly, composites are still
a tough sell to the U.S. Navy because of initial costs. Today
contracts are awarded, to a large degree, based on acquisition
cost. Gene Camponeschi of Naval Surface Warfare Center –
Carderock confirmed that acquisition cost is at the top of the
list for award criteria. The cost of composite material is 3X
to 4X that of steel. However, fabrication, maintenance and repair
costs, using composites, are considerably less over the life of
the platform.
That said
composites are slowly being incorporated into ship design. Two
such cases include the sonar array on submarines as well as areas
composed of highly complex surfaces like those found in the transition
area from sail to the hull (submarines).
Tony Abbey,
Director of Technical Services at NEi, made comment that design
and simulation tools, specifically addressing composite materials,
have advanced significantly and will aid in proving composites
as a viable alternative to steel construction: “simulation
tools are crucial to predicting the life of the product. In practically
every case, we are able to create lay-ups that exceed the expected
life of steel construction at significantly lower total cost of
ownership.”
SAVIAC
Symposium, October 29 – November 3, 2006 at the Hyatt in
Monterey, CA.
We have to
give credit to Hi-Test who sponsored the symposium for a job done
exceedingly well. Drew Perkins did an outstanding of managing
the event. Thanks Drew.
Tony Abbey
delivered a tutorial on nonlinear FEA for Shock and Vibration.
This tutorial addressed the theoretical background and best practices
using DDAM. NEi have since finished an improved version of DDAM
that yields better results as well addressing security in a three-phase
process (more about DDAM below). Many of the improvements were
due to suggestions made by the likes of Bath Iron Works and Electric
Boat. The enhancements will be available in NEi
Nastran V 9.1 in May, 2007.
NEi hosted
a DDG 1000 user group. The (4) partners and many subcontractors
attended this meeting to discuss simulation issues and resolution
of same. The main topic was about a relatively new requirement
for computational analysis of elastic/nonlinear raft mounts (See
Tech Tips below). The feature is due to be released in V 9.1 in
May, 2007. A major benefit will be to simulate the mounts without
having to access another software tool (Saint). We thank the partners
for their help with the design and test this feature.
New
Product Development
Noran Engineering, Inc. prides itself
on responding to the needs of its customer base for new features
and enhancements. Below is a preview of what you will find in
the next release of NEi Nastran, NEiWorks and NEiFusion.
New
features in the current NEi
Nastran scheduled for v9.1
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Added
von Mises stress output for bar and beam elements. |
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Reduced
processing time for element strain energy results. |
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Reduced
processing time for dynamic response analysis with complex
loading (Frequency and Transient Responses). |
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Added
a new, more accurate triangular plate bending element. |
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Added
mass and stiffness DMIG support for the PCGLSS solver modes. |
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Added
support for large strain hyperelastic and large strain nonlinear
elastic materials for solid elements. |
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Added
Automated Impact Analysis such as drop test and projectile
impact studies. Using a simple input form to define projectile
initial velocity and acceleration, the NEi Nastran solver
will automatically setup surface contact between the projectile
and part and calculate the time steps needed to capture an
accurate nonlinear transient event simulation. |
DDAM
Enhancements
Noran Engineering,
Inc. has developed a new phased approach to DDAM analysis, based
on customer requests. Previously the DDAM analysis could be split
into two phases. The first phase would allow checkout of the normal
modes, checkout of DDAM stresses using vanilla DDAM coefficient
data and storage of the modal data in a Modal Database. The second
phase would allow a DDAM restart in a secure environment using
the Modal Database with classified DDAM coefficient data.
The new phase
allows the DDAM output to be restricted to an intermediate file
containing the calculated input DDAM shock spectra. This is a
compact, text based file which is easily audited and exportable
from the secure environment. The potentially large amount of downstream
DDAM NRL sum stress calculations and associated output can now
be done in a further restart in a non-secure environment.
The new feature
adds great versatility and allows clients to optimize the allocation
of classified resources. In addition the shock spectra can easily
be plotted and evaluated to gain further understanding of important
modes and their contribution to NRL stresses and other results.
Used together with the existing options to filter modes based
on a variety of criteria this enhancement is a very powerful tool.
NEiWorks
and NEiFusion v1.2 New Features
Our latest
release of NEiFusion and NEiWorks will include beam elements and
plate elements which qualifies the product for maritime applications.
Prior to the development of beam and plate elements, NEiFusion
and NEiWorks were not suitable for maritime applications. The
FEA modeler used is our own and is suitable for many, but not
for all. Anyone interested in this product should contact their
sales representative so that your application can be mapped to
either NEiFusion or NEiWorks. Please contact Dave Buckman at 714.899.1220
x 205.
The benefits
of these two products include: price and ease of use.
NEiWorks functions inside SolidWorks and NEiFusion (identical
in function to NEiWorks) operates with any CAD system. Many shipbuilders,
or any company affiliated with maritime applications, who do not
currently use FEA in their design through test process, will want
to look at this designer-freindly product and the value that it
brings to their development process.
Other enhancements
include upgrading the mesh controls to allow the user to specify
such things as the number of elements or the element size preferred
along edges and sketch lines. To expand upon the modern tree based
interface of previous versions, users now have full access to
all NEiWorks and NEiFusion functionality through menus and toolbars.
This makes the product's GUI even more user-friendly, especially
to those users who are more comfortable working within an FE application
while using menus or toolbars. In addition, an Automatic Impact
Analysis Wizard has been added to simplify the creation of an
impact analysis on a model. This wizard provides the expected
accuracy and full set of results that one would normally expect
in an even more involved manual setup of such a simulation, yet
frees the user from the cumbersome setup normally involved when
performing this type of analysis. All of this has been added to
NEiWorks and NEiFusion v1.2, while making use of the industry
proven NEi Nastran solver that continues to be at the forefront
in both the speed and accuracy of customer solutions within the
Finite Element Modeling community.
Optimization
Software Added Across Entire NEi Product Line
HEEDS, a
world class optimization technology has been seamlessly integrated
to give NEi Nastran, NEiWorks and NEiFusion users the ability
to take advantage of this highly powerful tool. This capability
will allow the analyst to help optimize design by offering alternatives
to the design data he receives from his CAD group. This tool will
help the analyst who works with conceptual or initial designs
to help the designers improve upon materials and actual “shape”
of the vessel. The term “shape”, in the context of
optimization, refers to changes in material sizes and or structural
optimization i.e. thickness of plate, min/max scantlings, stiffener
placement, etc.
NEi
Nastran 64-bit version
The new 64-bit
NEi Nastran
is designed to run on 64-bit Windows Operating Systems. In addition
to being able to access memory above 4GB, the software contains
a new parallel equation solver technology known as Parallel Sparse
Solver (PSS). PSS fully exploits 64-bit hardware and the combination
provides FEA users with the following benefits over 32-bit:
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Significantly
faster solution speeds through parallel processing and efficient
use of CPU architecture |
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Large
model capability (+15 million degrees of freedom) |
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Efficiency
in the use of computing resources (e.g. speed scales with
processing power, high degree of independence of shared–memory
multiprocessing architecture) |
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Enhanced
robustness in solution capabilities (e.g. handles non-positive
definite matrices) |
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Reduces
the need for de-featuring |
A webpage
devoted to the discussion of 64-bit NEi Nastran
can be found at:
www.nenastran.com/NEiNastran V9 Windows x64.
Tech
Tips
Modeling
CBUSH elements in NEi Nastran
The
first step is to create the CBUSH property (Model>Property).
If you click on the Type box, we can choose the spring element
type.
This
element type is the enabler for performing nonlinear elasctic
raft mount simulations. The first step is to create the CBUSH
property (Model>Property). If you click on the Type box, we
can choose the spring element type.
Be sure to
click on the Formulation box to select the CBUSH element formulation.
Otherwise, by default if you enter the CBUSH property values,
they will be written out as CVISC elements instead. If you notice
that you are using PVISC and CVISC elements, you can update them
to CBUSH by going to Modify>Update Element>Formulation.
The spring property input form is broken up into two categories.
Section A is for an axial spring.
Section B
is for the CBUSH element. This is what we are interested in. You
can add stiffness and damping values for all 6 degrees of freedom.
By default, it will use the orientation coordinate system of the
element. This is similar to a beam element where the element x-axis
is from end 1 of the element to end 2 of the element. We define
the y-vector when we create the element, and the z-axis is calculated
from there.
Alternatively,
we have the option to specify an orientation coordinate system.
We can use the Global Rectangular Coordinate System to define
our stiffness values as they are drawn on the screen. Specifying
an orientation coordinate system is required if we are defining
a coincident CBUSH element (end 1 and end 2 are co-located).
Once the CBUSH
property is defined, we have to create the CBUSH element. This
can be done by going to Model>Element. By default it will select
the CBUSH element type. If it happens to be something else, you
can click on the Type box and select the spring element. Don’t
forget to click on Formulation and choose CBUSH.
If you are
using the element coordinate system (did not select an orientation
coordinate system on the property) you must define the vector
for the y-axis. If you defined an orientation coordinate system
on the property, then you can skip this step.
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