Simufact.welding 6.

0 release notes

Simufact.welding 6.0 release notes

(Release: October 2016)

1. General information
Originally, Simufact.welding was designed as a tool for structural welding simulations to calculate
distortions and residual stresses based on a mathematical description of equivalent heat sources.
With Simufact.welding 5.0.1 the software moved forward towards real processes. Version 6.0
focuses on applicability on large assemblies and also adds new post-processing possibilities.
Additionally, some huge improvements were made for resistance spot welding simulations. Recent
changes in the software and new functionalities are described below.

Remark
We highly recommend to update your Simufact.welding 5.0.1 software to Simufact.welding 6.0.
Especially you should not use both versions simultaneously, the backward compatibility cannot be
guaranteed.

Supported operating systems

• Windows 7 (64-bit), Windows 8 (64-bit), Windows Server 2008 (64-bit)
• Linux (64-bit): solver only (mostly tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.3 / CentOS
6.3 and compatible versions)

Supported hardware
• 64-bit CPU
• Graphics adapter with 32-bit color depth and OpenGL compatibility
• The size of system memory depends on the size of models to be calculated

Compiler and Intel® MPI versions used for Simufact.welding and sfMarc
• Compiler version used for Simufact.welding: Microsoft® Visual Studio 2013 Version
12.0.40629.0 Update 5
• Compiler version used for sfMarc:
◦ Intel® Composer XE 2013 Update 1
◦ Microsoft® Visual Studio 2013 Version 12.0.40629.0 Update 5
• MPI library for DDM installed with Simufact.welding: Intel® MPI v3.1

2. Improved functionality and fixed issues in Simufact.welding 6.0

Remark: Codes like “#2015-09-131#“ refer to support calls by customers. If you have questions
concerning a certain issue, you can refer to these codes for easy identification.

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 Simufact.welding 6.0 release notes

2.1 General usability

New and improved features
• Open window management is now more flexible.
• Added Japanese translation to the GUI.
• More informative brief descriptions.
• Opening a project from a directory where the user does not have sufficient rights to save
data will prompt a warning allowing to save the project elsewhere.
• Default file format for screenshots is set to PNG, allowing better quality.
• Last file format used for screenshots is remembered by the GUI.
• Improved handling of mouse and shortcut controls.
• Simufact.material can be added and removed to / from the start menu.

2.2 Preprocessing / process setup / model capabilities

New and improved features
• Introducing new process type “brazing”, which manipulates the heat input for a better
correspondence to a real brazing process.
• Introducing new process type “stress relief heat treatment”, allowing a definition of
temperatures over time for calculation of stress relaxation.
• Subdivision of process type “beam welding” into “laser beam welding” and “electron beam
welding”. The new “electron beam welding” process type respects changes in heat losses
due to vacuum chamber.
• Added a “single shot” solution for thermal joining, where all weld seams are heated at once
by a predefined thermal cycle. This is useful in large assemblies with a high number of long
weld seams (as those found e.g. in shipbuilding and aerospace industries). This allows fast
calculation of tendencies concerning distortions and stresses.
• Added a “shrinkage” solution for thermal joining, where the shrinking effects of welding are
visible. This is useful in large assemblies with a high number of long weld seams. The
results are less precise compared to a single shot method, but the calculation time is even
smaller.
• CAD geometries can be imported and the surface of imported geometries can be
triangulated in order to be used as tools (clamps, bearings, fixings).
• Improved menu bars as well as some menu structures to be more user friendly.
• Heat transfer between bodies can now be defined using automatic calculation and via tables.
• Improved management of thermal cycle tables.
• Improved heat source definition: the concentration factor (Gaussian factor) can be set per
GUI for every heat source.
• The weld path can be connected to the mesh. This is useful if distortions are too large and
the weld path misses the desired position during the welding process.

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Simufact.welding 6.0 release notes

• Improved heat source definition: laser and electron beam heat sources can be defined with a
conical shape instead of cylindrical.
• Positions of electrodes and heat sources can be previewed in the model view.
• Added a welding parameter library to support management of heat source data.
• The fillet generator recognizes situations where no proper fillet mesh can be created with the
current settings and warns about it.
• Added assemblies: groups of bodies (components or boundary conditions). All bodies that
belong to an assembly can be translated and rotated at once during model setup.
• Convective heat losses can be defined with time dependencies.
• The hardening model (isotropic, kinematic, mixed) can be defined separately for each
component.
• Objects in the object catalog can now be sorted alphabetically.
• Separation stress can be defined also for S2S contact.
• A trajectory selected in the process tree is now highlighted in the model view.
• It is possible to import several welding parameters at once.
• During rotation of components it is now possible to define the origin of the rotation axis.
• The max. number of components, boundary conditions and robots that can be created from
the process settings window is now set to 999.
• The process report was corrected with respect to some new functionalities.
• Model check added to process context menu.
• Added some new units.
• Added additional DDM methods, also changed the default method.
• New default thermal cycle table respects free cooling.
• During saving/copying of a project it is now selectable if the input deck (run directory) and
results are also copied.
• Added an example for material data for brazing/soldering filler material.
• Added an example for material data for an aluminum alloy with peak temperature
dependencies.
• Added X2CrTiNb18 (DIN 1.4509 / AISI 441) steel grade to the material data base.
• During the definition of the heat source orientation and fillet in the robot dialog window it is
now possible to select sampling points up to 999 directly.

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 Simufact.welding 6.0 release notes

• Welding parameter general properties now allow more than one equipment manufacturer
and equipment type per parameter. Also added welding position to the general properties.
• Materials can be assigned to tools (clamps, fixings, bearings) to respect the thermal
properties of tools.
• The total length of all assigned trajectories is shown in the robot properties.
• The element type is shown in the geometry properties. #2016-06-120#
• It is possible to suppress output of results for increments where not all passes (thermal,
mechanical) have been calculated due to decoupling.
• Rigid bodies (clamps, bearings, fixings) created out of the GUI can now have finer meshes
defined.
• Added new expert settings for step size control. It is now possible to define minimum,
maximum and initial time steps for each load case type in case of adaptive time stepping
scheme. Additionally, the automatic calculation of the maximum time step can be
influenced.
• It is now possible to use results (prestate files) created with refinement for prestate. #2014-
06-48#
• Element type 157 (tetrahedral elements with 5 integration points) can now be used for
simulations.
• The model check now recognizes following possible problems in addition to already
existing checks:
◦ Initial phase fraction of multiphase material is not set.
◦ A material without electrical properties is used in a resistance spot welding simulation.
◦ Material with wrong area of application is used.
◦ Material has an erroneous alloy composition.
◦ Solidus and liquidus temperatures are not defined.
• Model check warning removed:
◦ S2S contact and automatic calculation of electrical contact are now compatible.
Fixed issues

• Tyings in a mesh are respected during creation of input files.

• Wrong position of moving clamps if the direction was not a unit vector.
• Wrong representation of position of tool geometry during geometry creation.
• Symmetry plane had no contact with some of the geometries in the model. #2016-08-46#

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Simufact.welding 6.0 release notes

• It was possible to assign one fillet to more than one robot, resulting in an input error. Such
assignment is prevented now.
• Wrong initial phase composition was used in a thermal-only analysis with phase
transformation.
• It was possible to write solver input files while some dialogs were open. This led to an
inconsistency in the model.
• It was partially possible to rename a process or some of its components after writing the
input file.
• Wrong model view after geometry manipulation if fixed nodes are defined on a manipulated
mesh.
• It was not possible to switch from clamps with force and stiffness to clamps with stiffness
only.
• GUI crash when some file not readable by the GUI was dropped into the object catalog.
• Difficulties during mesh import for some particular file formats.
• GUI crashed sometimes during definition of the geometry for a boundary condition.
• Some tables in the input deck were extrapolated.
• Missing flow curve data after import of *.sf material file. #2014-06-38#, #2014-10-35#,
#2014-10-6#
• Fixed some issues concerning free cooling with thermal cycle.
• Possible problems with trajectory orientation defined manually.
• It was possible to start a calculation without any deformable bodies in the model. #2016-05-
94#

2.3 Postprocessing / evaluation of results

New and improved features

• Tracking points are replaced by pre- and post-particles, allowing the definition of particles
for X-Y plots after the simulation is complete.
• Added THS (time history) plots describing forces and displacements of tools during the
simulated process.
• Welding monitor now shows additional temperature ranges (AC1 and AC3 temperatures) to
visualize the heat affected zone, if phase transformation was used in the simulation.
• Color legend ranges can be scaled with respect to visible components only as well as for
components only without fillets.

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 Simufact.welding 6.0 release notes

• Pre- and post-particles are visible in the result view.

• Positions of points with minimum and maximum result values can be visualized in the GUI.
• The simulation progress is now shown globally and for the current loadcase.
• The heat source position is visible in the result view.
• Reworked and improved several color legend settings.
• Improved behavior of deformation scaling factor.
• More flexible control of the color legend style.
• The chemical composition is visible in the result view if available in the input data.
• View synchronization now also respects defined clipping planes and time steps.
• Color legend ranges for hardness are now defined with respect to existing hardness values
depending on the selected unit.

2.4 Simulation stability / result quality / calculation time

New and improved features

• Consequent usage of multiphysics input deck allows better convergence control.

• The contact status of fillets is visible in the result view in the 0th increment which allows a
quick evaluation if the fillets are defined properly.
• Contact problems concerning fillets (gaps, penetrations) are reported in the OUT file.

• Added a possibility to refine the welding area completely before the calculation starts. This
might improve the stability of the simulation compared to adaptive refinement and also
improve the result quality.
• The ALE procedure can be used for fillet elements, which improves the stability if the fillets
are getting highly distorted during the simulation.
• New contact settings improve the simulation stability and reduce the calculation time.

• Stress-free projection of fillets on components is now possible which improves the stability
in some cases.
• Improved definition of desired time steps and result output frequency.

• New DDM settings are available including island detection.

• Some simplifications in the input deck slightly reduce the calculation time and needed
memory.
• Adaptive refinement now happens during a single increment for all refinement levels.

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Simufact.welding 6.0 release notes

• Added assumed strain formulation with additive plasticity to expert mode. This can improve
the result quality if it comes to bending of thin structures, but is costly in terms of
calculation time.
Fixed issues
• In some cases the usage of thermal cycle with DDM led to exit 123.

• In multilayer welding the heat transfer between activated and deactivated fillets was not
correct.
• In multilayer welding cooling was blocked by inactive layers.

• Loss of glue contact during welding with adaptive refinement.

• In some cases distortions were not transferred with prestate.

• It was not possible to remove measuring transformation from the model. #2015-05-32#

2.5 Resistance spot welding

New and improved features

• Implemented “mechanical solution” where the weld spots are glued due to pressure without
temperature calculation. This gives a good idea about overall distortion of the model and
largely reduces the calculation time for large models.

• Implemented “single shot” solution where all spots are welded at once. This allows fast
evaluation.

• It is possible to define the stiffness for the lower electrode leading to more realistic behavior.

• Reference point and direction of spot weld gun are displayed in the model view.

• It is possible to calculate the orientation of the weld gun automatically.

• New glue contact can be set to glue bodies during cooling after the melting temperature was
reached.

• The local coordinate system of a weld gun can be completely defined in all three directions
now.

• Electrodes are automatically moved outside of the model in the initial increment.

• New convergence behavior for resistance spot welding.

• Support of phase-dependent electrical material properties using import from JMatPro.

• The welding sequence is visible in the result view.

• Different view updates during model definition improved.

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 Simufact.welding 6.0 release notes

• Electrodes can have materials assigned to improve the thermal behavior.

• Point sequences can be labeled for better overview of the model.

Fixed issues
• No deactivation of boundary conditions was possible in a resistance spot welding process.
• Wrong contact definition for the symmetry plane.
• Wrong stresses were transferred to an RSW model when the prestate data had been
generated in Simufact.forming.
• Fixed some bugs partially preventing the simulation to finish successfully.

2.6 Licensing and installation

• It is possible to define which license is to be used first if nodelocked and floating features
are available. #2016-08-7#
• Added license configuration script for Linux setup.

• When installed on a machine where a previous version is also installed, the setup offers a
possibility to read in settings of the already installed version.
• The installer exits if the installation is started on a 32-bit machine.

• Fixed an issue with DDM using Linux. #2015-10-46#, #2016-04-3#

• Fixed endless loop while checking license usage. #2016-05-40#

2.7 Data exchange

New and improved features
• Geometries can be exported as STL files out of the GUI.
• UNV export allows to export several components, time steps and results at once.
• UNV export settings can be saved as a JSON file and imported again to be used in several
processes.
• UNV export can be triggered in batch mode out of the windows command line using
existing JSON files.
• Improved import and export of CSV files.

2.8 Documentation

• All Demos&Examples were reworked.

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Simufact.welding 6.0 release notes

• Added an APEX for welding tutorial.

• Updated documentation about material definition.
• Largely updated the tutorial.
• Tutorial examples are now present in the Demos&Examples.
• Added examples for deposition processes and brazing.
• Added a number of infosheets describing new functions.
• Reworked infosheets with respect to new functions.

2.9 Features discontinued

• The CASI solver is not supported anymore.

3. Known issues
Regardless of the fact that we are trying to deliver a software which is as bug-free as possible, it is
possible that some issues appear due to software incompatibilities either with some hardware or
with some 3rd party software installed. See below for a list of known issues.
• If you have Dell Backup and Recovery software installed on your machine, it is possible that
Simufact.welding 6.0 crashes during the start or during opening of a project. It is also
possible that some program menus and windows are not shown properly. To fix this, either
uninstall the Dell Backup and Recovery software or open the command line as
administrator: Open the Windows start menu, type in cmd.exe. A symbol for starting the
command line tool appears at the top of the menu. Right-click on it and choose “Run as
administrator”. In the command line that is opened, type in the following commands:
regsvr32 /u "C:\Program Files (x86)\Dell Backup and Recovery\Components\Shell\DBROverlayIconBackuped.dll"
regsvr32 /u "C:\Program Files (x86)\Dell Backup and Recovery\Components\Shell\DBROverlayIconNotBackuped.dll"
regsvr32 /u "C:\Program Files (x86)\Dell Backup and Recovery\Components\Shell\DBRShellExtension.dll"
Please replace the given path by the path where Dell Backup and Recovery is installed on your
system, if necessary.

• Copying a running process, either with “Save as” or with “Create project from current” or
“Create project from current and import”, copies existing results and the run folder, but does
not start the calculation. Otherwise copying of intermediate results and folders out of a
running process may cause erroneous representation and calculation of original processes.
• Robot settings (e.g. offsets and orientation of trajectories) of projects set up in older versions
might not be sufficient for the current definition standard. In such cases please check the
settings and provide the missing data.
• Some data structures have been changed, a step necessary to resolve some issues with
trajectory descriptions. Thus, it is not possible to open a project created with
Simufact.welding 6.0 with former versions of the software.
• On systems with two graphic adapters, one of them being an onboard unit by Intel, it is
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 Simufact.welding 6.0 release notes

possible (depending on the system configuration) that the onboard unit is used for the
Simufact.welding GUI. In such cases there might be problems with colors in the result view.
Depending on your system you can either change the used graphical adapter for the
Simufact.welding application or disable the onboard unit completely.
• It is possible, if initial and/or maximum time step length of a loadcase are defined in the
expert settings, that the initial time step is larger than the maximum time step. In such cases
the solver respects the length of the initial time step in the first increment and limits the
length of a time step to the maximum time step length. To avoid this, define both values
respectively.
• It is not possible to get results for alloy composition if more than 20 different alloying
elements are present in a model.
• Please be careful setting up a process from results calculated in a process with refinement. If
the new process contains local joints that cause a high mesh deformation, the result transfer
might be erroneous, leading to missing results in areas affected by mesh distortion by local
joints.
• Hardness, tensile stress and proof stress values are only calculated and shown in the result
view if there is a proper cooling rate present.
• Refinement at once should not be used together with unrefinement. Refined areas will be
unrefined due to too low temperature.
• It is not possible to open APEX examples if you do not have writing permissions in the
directory where the examples are installed. In this case please copy the folder containing the
examples to some other directory on your hard drive where you have sufficient rights, or ask
your system administrator for help.
• Editing large input files out of the GUI (by using the patch functionality) might lead to a
GUI crash after saving the changes. In such cases the patch cannot be applied. As a
workaround please edit large DAT files as usual with an external editor without using the
patch functionality in the GUI. In case of a GUI crash your changes in the input file are still
saved.
• Even if you define a contact heat transfer table between components manually, the contact
heat transfer between components is handled as nearly ideal heat transfer on surfaces that
are glued on peak temperature (thus, connected by welding).
• Defining post particles on a fillet while the result view shows an increment where the fillet
is not activated at the particle position can lead to empty particle results. If you define post
particles on a fillet, you should consider to define them in the last increment.
• For all process types with the exception of Cooling&Clamping all deformable bodies
(components) have to have at least one contact body (other component or boundary
condition). The contact body can be deactivated after the first increment. Otherwise it is
possible that no results are written.
• If you have previous releases of Simufact.forming or Welding installed, please stop the Intel
MPI service out of the GUI and restart it out of the newly installed software version.

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