Better Engineering Through
Multibody Dynamic Simulation
February 2019 | Issue #15
In This Issue:
- More RecurDyn V9R2 MFBD Enhancements
- MotionPort Becomes a New EDEM Distributor
- Particleworks 6.2 Released
- In the News: MotionPort Welcomes EnginSoft
- User Tip: Unit Conversions in the Properties Window
RecurDyn V9R2: Mesher Enhancements
Various improvements have been made to the pre-processing, simulation, and post-processing for MFBD models including FFlex and RFlex bodies with many nodes/ elements or modes. It now takes less time to open RecurDyn model files and the Advanced Connection option can improve the simulation speed when using Bushing/Matrix Forces and Fixed Joints. Performance improvements have also been made for various post-processing tasks such as:
● Improved speed of opening MFBD model files: Opening rdyn files can be up to 50% faster.
● Improved simulation speed: Simulation speed can be improved using the Advanced Connection option.
- Bushing/Matrix Force: When Bushing/Matrix Forces are applied to FFlex and RFlex bodies, the simulation speed can be improved by 2 to 3 times, as shown in the plots.
- Fixed Joint: When Fixed Joints are applied to an RFlex body, the simulation speed can be improved by 2 to 5 times.
● RFA file generation: When analyzing a model with RFlex Bodies, RFA files can be generated about 2 times faster (Regeneration included).
● Min/Max calculation performance in Contour window: Calculating Min/Max in Contour window is up to 6x faster.
● Contour data export: Plot and Export in Contour window is 3 to 5 times faster.
● Play animation: Up to 50% faster when using the Modal Scaling of RFlex body.Click play below to see the faster animation in V9R2 when using Modal Scaling.
MotionPort Becomes a New EDEM Distributor for North America
MotionPort is pleased to announce that it is now an EDEM Distributor with the ability to provide a combined software solution that supports co-simulation between EDEM and RecurDyn multibody dynamics software in the North American region.
The RecurDyn/EDEM co-simulation solution enables engineers designing heavy equipment such as excavators, agricultural tractors, and off-road vehicles to introduce realistic bulk material behaviors to their multi-body dynamics simulations. Other applications include modeling soil interaction for off-road vehicles (even lunar and Martian scenarios). This capability provides key insights into equipment-material interactions – leading to increased design accuracy and optimized performance.
In conjunction with the release of RecurDyn V9R2 and EDEM 2019 there is a new capability for EDEM particles to interact with the RecurDyn nonlinear flex body (FFlex). A new webinar describing this capability is scheduled to be released in March. In the meantime you may be interested to see one of the archived webinars shown below that describe the basics of EDEM and the RecurDyn/EDEM co-simulation. View one of the webinars below or contact us here to schedule a web meeting.
What is DEM – An Introduction to the Discrete Element Method
Duration: 30 minutes + time for questions
Presenter: David Curry, Principal Engineer, EDEM
This webinar introduces the RecurDyn-EDEM co-simulation solution and shows how you can use it to improve your equipment design process.
Optimizing Equipment Design with RecurDyn and EDEM
Duration: 45 minutes + time for questions
Presenter: Dr. Marina Sousani, Engineer, EDEM
This webinar is for engineers and researchers interested in learning more about the Discrete Element Method and the basic concepts and governing principles of DEM.
ParticleWorks 6.2 Released
MotionPort is pleased to announce the release of Particleworks 6.2, the meshless liquid fluid simulation software based on the Moving Particle Simulation (MPS) method.
Particleworks 6.2 supports co-simulation with flexible bodies of RecurDyn. R-Flex (linear elastic bodies) as well as F-Flex (nonlinear elastic bodies) with large deformation can interact with polygon walls in Particleworks (defined as patch sets in RecurDyn). Simultaneously, RecurDyn calculates the deformation, dynamic stress and strain under the fluid force calculated by Particleworks.
Click on the play button below to watch RecurDyn/Particleworks co-simulation in motion.
Other Particleworks updated features include:
Mixing Degree Evaluation – Powder and granular materials are segregated due to various characteristics, such as their particle size, surface roughness and particle shapes. There have been many studies based on statistics of mixed state analyses. However, due to the statistical errors, it was impossible to evaluate the local mixed states or the mixed states of micro-components. Particleworks can solve this problem by using an evaluation system for mixing degrees based on entropy. By removing the statistical error it is now possible to evaluate the degree of mixing for arbitrary spatial resolution.
NVIDIA CUDA9.1 Support – Particleworks solver has been updated to support the latest CPU & GPU architectures. Particleworks 6.2 supports CUDA 9.1 (NVIDIA Volta architecture) which has been developed to be the most powerful computing engine for both computational and data science. This significantly boosts the performance of the Particleworks solver and allows users to perform large-scale simulations of up to tens of millions of particles.
Solver enhancement for openMP and MPI -Particleworks makes the most of the latest hardware environments, supporting multithreading (OpenMP) and multiprocessing (MPI), in addition to SSE/AVX instructions on CPUs.
In the News:
In the News:
MotionPort Welcomes EnginSoft USA
In 2018 EnginSoft USA became the master distributor for RecurDyn in North America, with MotionPort being the primary RecurDyn distributor. The role of EngineSoft with regards to RecurDyn is to grow RecurDyn business in North America.
EnginSoft in Europe is a large provider of CAE software to many companies in many countries and has been in business for a long time. EnginSoft USA was formed in 2018 to provide similar products and services in the North America.
As Chris Wilkes, President of EnginSoft USA explains, “Our goal is to continuously improve our customers’ product quality. Expanding our network of sales and support personnel and being in close proximity to where our customers are is a key initiative towards helping our customers achieve better results through simulation.”
Brant Ross, head of MotionPort, stated: “Chris and his EnginSoft team bring excellent marketing and business skills to the RecurDyn business, as well as the other CAE software that they are providing. MotionPort anticipates fast growth in RecurDyn business and looks forward to working strongly with EnginSoft USA to help make that happen.
Current MotionPort customers won’t need to make any changes with this organizational update. You will still work with the same MotionPort staff that you have been working with. What you may notice is a larger amount of fellow RecurDyn users in the future!
User Tip:
How can you easily apply supplier data to your RecurDyn model when the supplier data is provided in different units?
You can easily apply data to many different types of RecurDyn entity by using the Unit section under the General tab of the Properties window for that entity. When you set the units in the Properties window you are temporarily changing the units for that entity.
First of all, please understand that the master (permanent) units of the RecurDyn model are set with the units you specify when first creating the model, as shown in the figure below.
For example, let’s assume that you set the Units to MMKS (Millimeter / Kilogram / Newton / Second) when creating a model.
Now let’s consider that we have received some supplier data in IPS (Inch / Pound_Mass / Pound_Force / Second) units. To enter that data we bring up the Properties window for that entity, go to the General tab in the Properties window and select the IPS button. Then we go to the appropriate tab and input the various values. Once you click ‘OK’ button all of the data is converted into the permanent units that was set at the time of initial model creation (MMKS in this example).
In other words, the Unit section in the Properties window of Body plays a similar role to a unit converter. By setting new units and entering the values that were provided in the new units, RecurDyn provides a convenient capability to automatically converting the entered values to the permanent model units.
Want to learn more about how MotionPort can help you with your projects? Contact us today to schedule a free web meeting to learn how RecurDyn, Particleworks, and MBD for ANSYS are helping our clients and how they can help you.
MotionPort LLC | St. George, UT | www.motionport.com
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