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| Engineer's Studio® Ver.5 | ||
| Version | Release date | Updated contents |
| 5.1.0 |
16/05/16 |
<New Features and Improvements> * A command was added to merge nodes at the same coordinates in the model. * Improvements to the convergence algorithm for fibre elements for initial structure state forces has been made. * It is now possible to start multiple instances of the application and run calculations simultaneously. <Fixed problems> * Improvements to the convergence algorithm for M_Phi elements for initial structure state forces has been made. * A bug was fixed that caused an incorrect Ok/Ng judgement for shear calculations for Tm < Ta1 in some cases. * In very rare cases an error occurred that caused the results to show NAN's, i.e. invalid numbers. * A bug was fixed that caused an error during live load calculations sometimes. * An error occurred when a single plate load was defined for a very large number of plate primitives. * A bug was fixed that caused an error when Eigen analysis results were viewed in a model that contain a run definition that was not selected to be calculated. * When pasting a model or component with many nodes sometimes nodes failed to merge when they had exactly the same coordinates. * In some cases when nodes adjacent to the area being meshed existed, the 2D meshing algorithm failed to produce a structured mesh. * An error was fixed that occurred when clicking on the contour section plots in a model that had a mesh element with no primitives included. * A bug was fixed that caused the M-Phi skeleton to sometimes not be displayed in the M-Phi element result form. * A bug was fixed that caused an error when a limit state design check was undertaken without a check point being set. * A bug was fixed that caused the blue skeleton line of the M-theta skeleton to overrun the graph area when viewing spring member moment angle time history results. * When an outline containing a reference to another outline was duplicated the referenced outline was also duplicated. This has been corrected. Only the outline selected for duplication is now duplicated. * A bug was fixed that could cause the M-Phi z axis values to be displayed incorrectly on the M-Phi preview input form. This only affected the display, calculations were unaffected. * A bug was fixed in the printed reports that caused an incorrect input parameter to be displayed for some settings on hysteresis objects. * A bug was fixed that caused an error if the mouse was moved over the result screen while saving the model with results attached. * A bug was fixed that caused the incorrect printed output of some input parameters used in the auto creation of a spring member from a section according to Japan codes. * A bug was fixed that prevented selecting triangular primitives and quadrilateral primitives simultaneously in the mesh element editor. * It was possible to start another command before the delete command was completed. This has been prevented. * A bug was fixed that caused an error sometimes when pressing the abort button during an analysis. * Under rare circumstances when deleting nodes the master node of a rigid element could become unset. If this occurred the analysis was prevented by a warning message so there was no problem with the calculations. However, it could also cause the graphics to become unusual and the display size of the model to become very small. * When large scale displacement processing was used and the post processing option was set to large scale also, the spring elements were rendered incorrectly in the result graphics. This did not affect the calculation results. |
| 5.00.02 | 15/07/28 | <New Features and Improvements> * Each mesh element was rendered independently to other mesh elements. Smoothing of the contours, introduced in V5, only occurred at the common perimeters of primitives within a single mesh element. This has been extended to permit the user definition of smoothing groups. Mesh elements can be grouped together and contour smoothing will be performed across all common boundaries of primitives within the group. * The ability to open UC-1 Frame *.fmd files, select a model from the list and import it has been added to the import menu. * A generator function was added to the contour sections. Multiple load cases, runs, groups, action type and max/min settings may be selected. All combinations are generated as individual contour section definitions. * The caption on the title bar on the main form has been augmented to show the licence category under which the application is running. e.g. Lite/Advanced/Ultimate. * Factors for deep beam effects (Cdc, Cds) were added to the Ultimate Shear Check for SFHB V. * When frame element actions were printed out the 6 components were split over two pages, one with 4 columns the second with 2. The column sizes have been adjusted to fit 6 columns in an A4 page. * In the Ultimate Shear Check for SFHB V and IV, the factor Cc was defined for both Type I, Type II loading. Previously only a single value was input. * The adjustment factor Cpt for axial reinforcement specified by several design codes could be input for the Y and Z axes. However, the applied actions (N,M) determine which side of the section is in tension. It was not possible to enter Cpt for each side of the section. The input for Cpt has been extended to cover these cases. It is no longer necessary to know the actions in advance of entering the design information. * An option was added to the system colour options to permit setting the color for the text on displacement diagrams in result mode that shows the displacement magnification factor. * A system colour option was added to control the colour of the fonts on the plate contour section diagrams. <Fixed problems> * Details were improved in the PPF report for the Limit State Design Serviceability Appearance Torsion Crack. * Temperature loads were not added to load combinations in load case analysis. Sequence analysis was unaffected by this error. * Plate element results written to CSV export files had the angles written in radians, but the title indicated degrees. This has been amended to be degrees. The same problem existed in the time history result form. * When no reinforcing was present in the Y direction in a plate section definition, the C value displayed in the user interface was incorrect. The correct value was used in the calculations. * In minimum reinforcing calculations for SFHB III H14 & H24, the effective tensile reinforcing could not be input when the Calculation Type was Direct Input. For other Calculation Types, the Ast value was calculated and used correctly. * For footing member types and cyclic shear loading settings the values calculated for the adjustment factor Cds were incorrect. * In some cases the efficiency ratio cannot be calculated in design check results due to the denominator being 0. In these cases 0 was shown. The infinity symbol is now shown instead. * When a UC-win/Frame(3D) file with steel section allowable moment design checks was imported, the design checks did not run. * The view settings in the bridge editor form did not apply correctly to the 3D view. * An error occurred during validation checks when a node result query existed and load settings were absent from a sequence load definition. * A problem has been averted that prevented graphics being displayed in the node and element time history result form when the PC's graphic card was an Intel HD Graphics 4400 card. * And error occurred when exporting a front facing view to DXF or DWG from the result form. * When kanji names were used in printed reports of input data for groups, the format could extend beyond A4 width. * Some fields on the spring properties object editor were disabled for input when they should have been editable. This has been corrected. * An error was fixed that prevented importing DXF/DWG data in some cases. * Under certain circumstances an error could occur during the processing of the graphics for the surface loads on plate elements. The bug caused an out of memory error to occur. * In the printed reports for some average results, the load step of the occurrence was reported. The load step is meaningless to average results. This text has been removed. * An error occurred in the Code Configuration property editor when a numerical section element was selected. * Contour section plot exports to the disk were not possible when load case analysis was done. This issue appeared in V5.0.1 only. * A result form tab name was incorrect in the Japanese version. |
| 5.00.01 | 15/06/03 | <New Features and Improvements> * In the input table for shear force section design checks a column for the effective axial reinforcing has been added to enable copy operations from this data. However for the direct input method the value is not displayed here, but can be obtained from reports after calculation. * The axial force, N, was added to the table for the MPhi element details table in the input forms. This same data is able to be exported to CSV. * The short cut key (Ctrl-N) for creating a new model has been removed. * It is now possible to resize the section selection window that is called from the frame member table editor. This permits viewing a much large number of sections at once while making a selection. The Ok/Cancel buttons have been removed from this form. Once the correct section is selected close the form with the 'x' in the upper right corner to complete the editing operation. <Fixed problems> * When the working folder for the application was set to a folder name that contained Japanese characters an xml error occurred when the solver was called. This has been corrected. * When a contour section is taken along the edges of adjacent primitives, the resulting edges did not always render their plot value on the same side. This can create unexpected renderings where the plot appeared to alternate from one side to the other. The tabulated data was correct but the image was not as expected. * In V5 the contour section for each plate element is created independently and they are all concatenated together to give the final contour section. However, when adjacent primitives existed in different plate elements, duplicate vertices were created.In V4 and before all plate elements were merged together and contour sections created from all primitives together. Duplicate vertices did not occur. This difference affected the plotting algorithm that decides which side of the edge to plot the value. Some differences could be seen compared to previous versions. This algorithm has now been improved and gives similar results to V4. * There was an issue in the input form of the data for the code configuration data for J-BEC H17 [Mu] that caused some input cells to be enabled when they were not used and the incorrect strain-stress graph was displayed. Calculation results were unaffected. * When the ultimate shear, Sus, calculated according to the Specification for Highway Bridges part III became 0, the ratio with the actual shear became zero and NG was not displayed in the summary table. This has been corrected. ∞ is now displayed for the ratio and NG will appear in the summary table. * AV occurs when opening contour section form if a previously selected run is not calculated. * When a fibre element summary report had been created and then the hysteresis objects were deleted and the file saved, the file became corrupt and could not be read again. * Old F3D files that contain limit state design input data and were read into an old version of ES (Ver 1, 2) and were saved from that version could not be read into later versions of ES. This has been corrected. * There was an error in the values displayed for the frame element y axis setting in the frame element table editor. This has been fixed, it did not affect calculation results. * The name of the load case was missing from the title of contour section plots. * V5.0.0 automatically adds a plate element time history query to old data files when they are read to preserve backward compatibility of results. However, this converter runs every time a file is opened. Thus, even if the query was deleted, it will reappear next time the file is opened. This has been resolved. The converter now only runs when a version older than V5.0.0 is opened. * A problem could occur when creating printed reports when a single-byte underscore or a half-width + symbol was in a load case name. * Units were shown incorrectly on the summary result table for relative ratios for curvature, φ/φa、φ/φy、φ/φc. There are no units on these ratios. * In the table editor for contour sections there was no column of data for the setting when the coordinate system was selected from a single plate element. * An error occurred when deleting a contour legend that was assigned to a contour section. * An error occurred when a plate section was deleted and that plate section had a reinforcing section that was used in a plate element. * When a very large number of plate elements (>10000) were selected in the plate section force editor, some of them were not rendered. This has been corrected. * The failure torsion moment output value in the printed reports and the safety ratio were printed incorrectly. This has been fixed. * Impact factor for p2 load of Tandem or T could not be input. * An error occurred when changes were made to a bridge definition while the view settings form was open for the bridge editor. |
| 5.00.00 | 15/04/15 | <New Features and Improvements> * A Usage Guidance document has been created for the plate element. It includes a description, cause, means of identification and remedies for issues that may occur with the plate element in Engineer's Studio. * Time history result queries for plate elements have been added. They follow the same pattern as other entity based time history results with table data and plots. This makes it possible to obtain result values at arbitrary locations and time steps. Previously results were limited to maximum values per group. * New post processing options for the contour plots have been added. The set comprises of Full Smoothing, None & Average. Full smoothing applies to results occurring at Gauss points. The values are extrapolated to the nodes using the underlying FEM theory. The node values are then averaged with adjacent elements and used to recalculate other internal locations in the element. The "None" option renders each element independently to adjacent elements using the raw results from the solver. The "Average" option plots the average of the Gauss point values over the entire element independent to adjacent elements. * The specification for plate element contour sections has been redeveloped. There is now a separate result form for contour section plots. Settings can be made via option panels and the location plot, section and section table data can be viewed on the result screen. The origin for the section can be selected graphically by mouse operation from the location plot on screen. Gauss points are also rendered. Mouse over functions show plot results at the current mouse location. Settings can be saved in the file. Saved settings can be selected and exported to the disk as a batch. * When curvature checks are conducted under the Japan building codes, the moment curvature relationship to use needs to be defined based on the initial axial force selected prior to analysis. The previous specification was to use the axial force that occurs simultaneously with the maximum curvature. A new option has been added to select either of these methods. * A redesign of the user interface for the report definitions has been done. There is now three simple buttons on the top ribbon to select which category of report to view. From there the main form contains a tree navigation panel showing which items have been selected. It is possible to gain an overview of all defined reports, enable/disable all at once and navigate directly to an area of interest. It is also possible to delete all at once. * When defining moment curvature skeletons via section calculations, it is now possible to input an arbitrary axial force to inspect the result. Previously a member had to be selected and the axial force used on the form was taken from that member's settings. It is no longer possible to select a member at this stage in the input. Members may not yet have been defined and the need to select a member made experimentation inconvenient. A new form was added for previewing the actual moment curvature relations used in the analysis for each member. This replaces the functionality lost in the above modification. * When defining moment rotation spring definitions via section calculations, it is now possible to input an arbitrary axial force to inspect the result. Previously a spring member had to be selected and the axial force used on the form was taken from that member's settings. It is no longer possible to select a member at this stage in the input. Members may not yet have been defined and the need to select a member made experimentation inconvenient. A new form was added for previewing the actual moment rotation relations used in the analysis for each member. This replaces the functionality lost in the above modification. * A function was added that copies selected code configuration data to multiple other objects which have the same data. Previously each object had to be edited individually in the form editor. * In result mode an object can be selected and the sequence results for that object accessed directly from the right click menu. * The ability to plot the numerical values of the average for each primitive over the contour diagrams has been added. * It is now possible to automatically copy the current contour plot range into a user defined legend. This may be convenient when animating contour images for directional dependent results. Previously each image was prepared with the legend range determined for only that image. So this caused continual changing of the contour legend range during animation. By copying the range from the maximum step into a user defined legend the legend range can be held constant during animation. Note that this issue did not occur for principal axis plots as the ranges for these are compiled automatically during the main solver calculations. However such calculations are not possible for direction dependent results as there is an infinite number of possible result values. * Options to render the plate thickness, section name, primitive name and average plot value have been implemented in the contour result plots. * A function was added to table editors to paste into multiple rows if selected. A single row can be copied and if multiple rows are selected, the copied row values are duplicated to all selected rows. * When items in a table editor were sorted items with the same values changed places each time the sort occurred. A different sort algorithm has been adopted that retains the original list ordering for equivalent values. * A table editor has been added to input spring boundary conditions on supports. Previously the values were only able to be entered one at a time on a form. The input for coupled springs is also supported in table so there are 18 columns. * A new switch was added to the report options for input data. When the switch is on a 3D diagram for each group in the model is output automatically. Also a new generator button has been added to the user defined reports. When it is clicked a 3D user defined diagram for all groups is generated. One set of diagrams with node names and one set with element names are generated. * Performance improvements have been made to the time it takes to display the result form after the calculation of a large model. The model tested contained 40,000 nodes, 10,000 spring elements, 10,000 supports, 10,000 plate elements. Before the improvements the processing took about 3 1/2 minutes. After the improvement the time was about 20s. * A bug was fixed that cause the dockable navigation panel on the left side of the main form to remain hidden under certain conditions. * An option was added to enable/disable the display of various components of reaction in the graphics for the summary results. * A new feature was added that reorders the primitives in a mesh element based on their geometrical position. This makes searching for a given name in graphics easier. * In the curvature check summary result table both allowable and response curvatures were shown as absolute values. The signs are now shown. * There was a threshold on the Youngs modulus for plate elements in the solver. If below the threshold the material was deemed to be non-structural and not included in the analysis. The threshold was 1 kN/m^2 and this is adequate for typical structures. However, some theoretical testing requires smaller values. The threshold was reduced to 1E-12 kN/m^2. * In the comments in the summary overview table for shear strength calculations, the ultimate moment is now shown with a sign. * When trying to display the result form after analysis of a model containing 2000 groups, the application did not respond. This has been resolved. * Copy and paste (Ctrl C-Ctrl V) was enabled in property forms in the section editor. * Improvements to the speed performance of copy & paste on the section elements table editor were made. * The optional rendering of arrows for principal axis plate element results has been extended to include arrow rendering for directional results also. * When a user defined report is created from the main result form for plate element results there is now an option to include or exclude the max/min values for the currently specified plot. <Fixed problems> * Testing has revealed that out of plane shear forces can be unreliable over a wider range of t/L ratios than previously thought. The t/L warning message has been removed to avoid misleading information and a technical document created to explain the issue in detail and give guidance on how to obtain out of plane shear forces for design. In addition improvements to the element formulation are being investigated. Note that this does not affect displacements, in plane axial forces or out of plane bending moments, only the out of plane shear forces. * When the switch settings for a run for initial structure state forces were Use in Eigen analysis : On Use in main calculation : Off The initial structure state forces were included in the element forces for the main run. This was incorrect. They should have only been included in the element forces when "Use in main calculation" is on. This occurred in the beam element and spring element. * Under very rare situations loads became disconnected from the elements they were applied to. The loads remained in the model but were not applied during analysis. The cause of this has been fixed and when files prior to V5 are read they are checked for this issue. If this issue is detected the data is repaired and a warning message is displayed which shows which loads and elements were affected. * Problems in the curvature check of the absolute curvature design checks have been resolved. * It was not possible to enter values for fixed degrees of freedom of spring members. These were always treated as zero. This has been corrected and values can be entered now. Values obtained from elastic analysis are also retained correctly and appear in the final sequence analysis results. Note that these values do not affect other results because the spring was fixed in that direction. This program modification just makes it easier to record the total forces associated with the fixed direction. * When a section element that contained a reused outline element that in turn contained a circle, the circle mesh option in the fibre section editor was not able to be selected. This has been enabled. * When copying plate element coordinate system vectors from the input form normalised values were copied instead of the original input values. Input values are now copied. * A bug was fixed which caused and "out of system resources" error to occur under repeated operations on some editors. * When reinforcing rods overlapped boundaries of area mesh elements in a fibre section, in some cases the area of the bar was not subtracted evenly from the underlying mesh cells. This would not have affected results significantly for typical mesh settings. * In a section with prestress shear, Sp, the sign of Sh was not considered when the section capacity, Suc, was calculated. * Displacement values for frame members fully inside a rigid body were not calculated. All values were zero. * In a section with prestress shear, Sp, the sign of Sh was not considered when the section capacity, Sus, was calculated. * When the Hoshikuma concrete hysteresis was used the default setting for the tensile concrete damage criteria was in correct when the tension model was ignored. This did not affect the main calculation, just the post processing of the damage criteria results for tension. * A problem importing detail settings relating to shear reinforcing content from UC-win/FRAME(3D) was resolved. * On user defined legends for crack width plots the very last colour for the maximum range was not rendered correctly. * Validation checks for time history result queries were occurring on runs that were not to be calculated. The validation checks are for suitability of the selected range of steps in the query. Unused runs are no longer checked for. * An improvement was made to the operation of the table editors when adding a new row while sorting is active. Previously the new row did not appear until sorting was deactivated. Now, the row is visible even while the table is sorted. * When a new model was created a reinforcing material for the plate element was always created by default. This was unnecessary and is no longer done. * The ground spring/plate element generator command is now disabled when the necessary material nonlinear licence is not detected. * It is now possible to include the input data for soil profiles in the printed reports. * After the main form had been expanded to full screen size and then returned to normal size the relative sizes of some components were not retained. This has been resolved. * When importing DXF/DWG data as sections that contained blocks errors could occur. Block data is no longer read. * In load case analysis a bug was fixed that caused the table data to be omitted in the reports for reactions in envelope load cases. * Additional details have been added to the report of the Suc code design calculations. * A bug was fixed in the reporting of the Awreal > Aw code design check. Even though Aw=0 was entered, a non-zero value was reported. * When element axes were selected to be displayed in the view settings only the currently selected element on the screen had its coordinate system displayed. However, in reports, none were displayed as the selection information was not used in reports. This has been modified so that when this option is on, all elements have their coordinate systems rendered in printed reports. * When default hysteresis objects were deleted and a new section created from the plugin section generators an error occurred when the section editor was opened. This has been fixed. * When a reduction factor for stiffness in an Eigen analysis was based on an M-Phi skeleton, and that skeleton was based on a section calculation that had failed, the Eigen analysis failed with a solver error about an unstable node. However it was difficult to establish the true cause of the problem from the solver error. An improved error message is now provided. * AN AV could occur during analysis under rare circumstances as follows. 1. A load case contained invalid data input for a load (e.g. Non sequential elements selected in a continuously distributed load) 2. Sequence analysis with an initial structure load case was performed. 3. The invalid load case was not used in the sequence loads. Under these conditions the invalid load was not detected during validation. This caused an error later in the processing. The loads are now validated. * Problems in exporting new materials from ES to UC-win/Section were resolved. * Section data created with generators in UC-win/FRAME(3D) could cause errors at times when being imported to ES. The issues have been resolved. * Elastic members have no index for strain based performance results. They were rendered in the colour of elastic elements but are now rendered with the "no result colour defined in the legend." * An error occurred when an analysis was attempted without defining a sequence load in a run. This is now covered by a validation check prior to executing the analysis. * An incorrect caption in the printed reports for Asreal > As checks was fixed. * The default model size on the input graphics view could be too small when plate sections that are very thick compared to the model size were used. This was because the view setting switch for plate sections was not considered. This has been resolved. * Captions on the horizontal axis of the plots comparing plate theory to beam theory were incorrectly labelled as t/L. They are actually L/t. This has been amended. Vertical axes have had extra captions added. |
| Engineer's Studio® Ver.4 | ||
| Version | Release date | Updated contents |
| 4.00.00 | 14/08/04 |
|
| Engineer's Studio® Ver.3 | ||
| Version | Release date | Updated contents |
| 3.00.00 | 13/05/30 |
|
| Engineer's Studio® Ver.2 | ||
| Version | Release date | Updated contents |
| 2.01.00 | 13/01/22 |
|
| 2.00.00 | 12/07/19 |
|
| Engineer's Studio® Ver.1 | ||
| Version | Release date | Updated contents |
| 1.07.01 | 12/05/07 |
|
| 1.07.00 | 11/12/22 | <New option>
<New Features and Improvements>
|
| 1.06.03 | 11/08/24 |
|
| 1.06.02 | 11/05/31 |
|
| 1.06.01 | 1/03/09 | <New Features and Improvements> + It is now possible to define the effective reinforcing ratio for a reinforced concrete plate section layer in the X & Y directions independently. Previously only the gross ratio was input and this was adopted internally as the effective ratio. Some situations were difficult to model with this limitation. + A new CAD command was added that creates multiple rigid elements, spring elements or frame elements using an offset and a direction from existing nodes. It is useful for quickly generating joint regions between plate elements for example. It produces an effect like a kenzan used in Japanese ikebana. + A new command was added for editing rigid bodies on the main 3D CAD view. Child nodes can be added and removed by direct graphical selection. This extends the editing abilities provided by the table editor. + Docked tab sheets can now be closed directly by clicking an "X" button on the tab. + Added support for panning directly from the middle mouse button. + "Contour Text Color" and "Contour Line Color" were added to the System Options-->Color Setting. These are for the legend on the result form 3D graphical view. + The order of nodes resulting from an element division command was changed from descending to ascending. + Warning message is shown if member length is less than 0.01m. + When selecting a row in the result table for plate element results the view parameter forms are now updated correctly when the magnitude of the out-of plane shear force cell in the table is clicked. + The result display response time was improved for large models in load case analysis. (The model used in testing was over 40000 nodes.) + When some named objects were copied and pasted several times, the auto unique name generator created very long inconvenient names. (e.g. Nodes ). The name generator now strips off incoming trailing numerical characters before creating a unique name by attaching a new number. The new number starts as the list count. + Command property editors sometimes appeared to the left of the main form when the editor was wider than the navigation tree. In these cases the editor will now align with the left of the main form. <Fixed problems> * Input/Output + A section containing reinforcing could sometimes generate an error after merging. + When nodes were deleted as isolated nodes, they were not removed from the groups. + There were English captions on the command prompt panel for the commands for the creation of frame and plate elements. The localisation has been updated. + Access violation error occurred when Play button was clicked after Strain Performance Criteria was selected. + An unexpected error occurred during an analysis with two runs when the runs had different pick-up keys. Also an access violation error sometimes occurred during analysis when the run editor form was docked on the main window. + Influence line result and check point result table was not displayed in result mode. + An error occurred when the order of the load cases was changed or a new load case was added in the Load Case Editor form when the model had Dead Load(St.) or Earthquake Load and had Load Configuration data for design calculations. + Under certain conditions, the printed reports of plate contour figures had incorrect colours. + In a large model changing the static earthquake factor in the Model Setting editor created long delays in updates of the screen. Improvements have been made such that if loads are not being viewed graphically the response is much better than the previous version. * Calculation Results + In some models with over 3000 nodes the 32bit solver occasionally failed and reported an unknown error. This problem has been fixed. + Plate actions could be set to zero in the contour plots when plate sections with material nonlinear layers were analysed with the global material linear switch on. * File I/O + If a file was saved after spring elements in a group were deleted, the file could not be reopened. The issue has been resolved. + If a file was saved after input data for section calculations was deleted, the file could not be reopened. The issue has been resolved. + The program failed to read a f3d file that include a section that used a "Reuse Outline" element type. + In a file where reports including sub envelope load cases and pickup keys had been deleted, an error occurred when saving the file. The issue has been resolved. + An error occurred when a non structural material was assigned to a numerical section. |
| 1.06.00 | 10/12/27 |
<New Features and Improvements> * Solver + The PARDISO(Parallel Direct Solver) Sparse Matrix Solver has been implemented in the solver. This greatly increases the performance of the solver on large models. Memory usage is significantly reduced and calculation times are significantly improved. Both of these effects make it possible to analyse models far larger than previously possible. For example, a 45000 node model (plate elements, material nonlinear, static analysis) uses 3GB of memory compared with 20GB in the previous version. Note that the memory used by the matrix is only a part of this. Material nonlinear models require a significant amount of memory to store state data compared to material elastic models. This model calculates in 30 minutes compared with 20 hours in the previous version. Eigen analysis uses less than 1GB memory whereas the previous version required memory amounts beyond the limits of typically available desktop PCs and could not run. This model calculates in one minute compared with an estimated two hours in the previous version if memory had been available. This new feature in conjunction with the previously released 64 bit version has significantly increased the model size capabilities of Engineers Studio. + The bilinear spring type previously had a zero spring stiffness at the origin in its specification. Although this did not affect nonlinear analysis, it created problems using this spring type in static analyses and eigen analyses. Sometimes a dummy spring of small stiffness was recommended as a work around for this. This specification has been improved and the zero initial stiffness state has been removed. + The previous restriction of 1000 child nodes per rigid body element has been removed. There is no restriction now. + In certain combinations of spring elements and plate elements, the solver incorrectly reported an unstable structure. * Mindlin Plate & Fibre Element + A new ground spring generator command was added. Soil stiffness properties for a profile are entered and applied to a selected mesh element. Spring stiffnesses for nonlinear spring members are integrated over the plate elements in the selected mesh and applied at the nodes. All required spring definitions, spring elements, nodes and support conditions are automatically generated. + Previous versions stored and reported the maxima for contour plots over the whole model. From this version, maxima are stored and reported per user defined group. Groups may comprise of any elements. An element may belong to 0, 1 or more groups. An automatic "non grouped" set is also defined and maxima reported for that. + The load step of the maxima for crack strains in the plate element are now shown in a table result form. + Added the ability to define side clipping planes for plate loads. + Window Design unified for "Free Outline Mesh Element","Rectangular Mesh Element" and "Plate Element From Outline". + A new delete function was added to the mesh element editor. Now when multiple primitives are selected they can all be deleted by a single command. The option to delete unused nodes is also included in the new command. + Improvements to the commands that create surface mesh elements from outlines. + Contour plots for load combinations are now available. + Fibre strain results for fibre elements are now prepared per group. This is now consistent with strain contour plotting for the plate element which is also done per group. * User interface performance for large models + Performance problems on large models in the load editor table were resolved. + A progress bar was added for loading files. + In a model with a large number of frame members, the graphics performance in result mode was very poor. This has been improved. + The performance of the frame member table editor was very poor on large models. Improvements have been made. + Hysteresis, MPhi and Spring definitions contained a lot of automatically created data that was not always required. In large models this data caused performance problems when reading and writing files. The data is now only created when required. + In a model with many load steps and many cells in a fibre section the display of the fiber section results was very slow. Improvements have been made. Tho slow problems have been improved. + On large plate models many node supports can exist. In these cases the symbol used to represent supports in the 3D views caused rendering speed performance problems. A new symbol has been adopted to improve this. + When many groups existed in a model, the 3D rendering performance was poor. Improvements have been made. + The application performance was poor when deleting a large number of objects from a large model. Improvements have been made. * Miscellaneous + When point loads were shown on the graphics, the sign of the load was also included in the text in the graphics. This was unnecessary and potentially misleading as the graphic already shows the direction of the load accounting for the sign. + Default setting for contour plots of displacements in result mode is set to the magnitude of the displacement instead of the x component. + When a frame member was drawn orthogonal to the screen in the 3D graphics, there were cases when selection failed as there were no pixels rendered. + Multiple selection feature is supported on thumbnail view editor that is Outline, Section, Spring Property, M-Phi Property, Hysteresis and Dynamic Signal. All selecting also can be done by Ctrl key and 'A' key. + UC-win/Frame3D permits a different beam element type to be assigned to each element per run. Engineer's Studio does not support this specification. Only a single element type is defined and it applies to all runs. Hence, when reading UC-win/Frame3D files into ES, some data may be lost and also, there is no clear candidate for the element type when multiple types existed. This issue is resolved by setting the element type to the type used in the first calculated run in the old file. + The speed of the checking of network dongles was improved. <Fixed problems> * Input/Output + When point loads existed at intermediate points on a frame member, sometimes the number of rows in the result table viewer for the actions were incorrect. + When viewing strain performance damage results, if a spring member has "No Damage", then its colour is the "No Damage" colour. Previously it was the elements default colour which could cause confusion if the colour matched a damage index colour. Also the spring element did not use the correct colour for black and white printing. + The plate element always rendered the base material strain performance results by default even if the currently selected criteria was not one related to plate results. Now it renders the "No Result" colour if the selected criteria does not relate to plate results. + A bug has been fixed that caused an error when creating outlines from the outline database. + Contour plot legend data was not calculated correctly when multi runs existed. + Floating point calculations sometimes caused an unreliable calculated mesh size. Also the user input mesh size was treated as a minimum, not a maximum as indicated on the user interface. The calculation now treats it as a maximum as per the user interface. + When the view angle was such that the input plane was perpendicular to the screen, the transform commands (Move & Rotate) did not start. + The input grid was drawn in the wrong position when using non global input coordinate systems. + In files exported from some UC 1 products, the check points were sometimes rendered in the wrong position. + When multiple support cases existed, an error could occur when deleting a support case that had supports assigned to it. + An error occurred under certain conditions when pasting into the node table editor. + The export to UC-win/Section did not export the load cases and check point actions. + Display of many nodes or elements by selection command on Grouping window was blank. If string is over 1000 character, "..." is shown on it. * Calculation Results + When a temperature load was included in a load combination and used in a fully linear analysis, incorrect internal element results could appear. + When the load profile did not cover the whole plate element too much load was applied. + When the input order of the nodes of adjacent plate elements had opposing winding directions, the solver sometimes reported the model as unstable. This has been resolved. |
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