Toutinga number of customer-requested enhancements in the areas of modeling,visualization, contact, mechanics and performance, Dassault Systemes began shipping Abaqus 6.10 ExtendedFunctionality (6.10-EF), the latest update to its unified Finite ElementAnalysis (FEA) and multiphysics product suite, from its SIMULIA brand.

Among the modeling and visualization enhancements the 6.10-EF has dramaticallyimproved support for substructure modeling capabilities. This new capabilityallows Abaqus users to more easily create a substructure of a distinct regionin their product, import it into an assembly, recover the results during ananalysis and reuse the substructures in future models, saving significantmodeling time.

Abaqus 6.10-EF also provides new contactand mechanics capabilities that improve the efficiency and accuracy ofsimulating real-world performance of designs, including fluid leakage between 3-Dbodies in contact. For example, uneven pressure applied to a syringe plungerduring use can result in fluid leakage between the rubber seal and barrel.Support for 3-D pressure penetration loading can now be used with any contactformulation, allowing for higher-fidelity simulation results.

Other additions to the new release include expansion of the Extended FiniteElement Method (XFEM) in Abaqus, allowing users to predict crack growth due tolow-cycle fatigue such as with thermal analysis of the heating and coolingphase that occurs in an engine exhaust manifold. This capability can also beused to accurately predict the durability and damage tolerance of compositestructures with complex failure mechanisms, according to SIMULIA officials.

Abaqus 6.10-EF also keys in on performance enhancements, including a newscalable, parallel execution capability within the AMS eigensolver, whichsignificantly accelerates frequency extraction analyses required to studyNoise, Vibration and Harshness (NVH) behavior in vehicles. SIMULIA's four-coreAMS eigensolver is estimated to be 1.5 times faster than competitivesolutions.