We are giving a kick start to “What’s New” series. This year, we begin with 3DExperience updates followed by power of portfolio updates. Let’s see what’s new in model building environment. The scenario and result visualization updates will follow. The release level of support has been mentioned against the feature.

• New Role: A new role called structural and durability engineering FHM has been introduced. This

rests somewhere between SSU and SYE in a sense that it has embedded compute and fatigue functionality as well. It has 32 embedded cores compute capacity.

Model Build Enhancements

Geometry Preparation Enhancements:

• Defeaturing: It can now be done based on industry context parameters such as casted, powertrains etc. A new filter has been added to defeature drafts. 2022xGA
• Mid Surfacing: Parts with steps of thickness or variable thickness can be efficiently mid surfaced. A great feature for mid surfacing of pressed parts. 2021xFD05

Automated FEM Enhancements: These updates are related to the SMA role.

• Axi-symmetric models: This feature has been awaited since long. The axisymmetric FEM has been introduced. The conjugate 2D geometry can either be explicitly specified or extracted from 3D geometry. Both axi-symmetric beams and shells are supported. 2021xFD05

• Preloading: This functionality is based on the *import feature of Abaqus. The results of one simulation can serve as the preloading or boundary condition for following simulation. The mapping can be from standard->standard or explicit->standard. 2021xFD07
• Submodeling: This is yet another traditional Abaqus modeling technique that has been awaited in the 3D Experience platform but now it is available. It’s of great value for large models in which only a section of model needs to be studied in detail with finer meshes. The submodel can be defined using either a sphere or a box. 2022xGA

Surface Meshing Enhancements:

• Element Locking: This is a feature of mesh editing. The locked elements are not affected during mesh editing process. Earlier only domain selection method existed but now elements can be selected directly. 2022xGA
• Quad dominant mesher enhancement: Mesh flow pattern control has been added to support meshes for given scenario. This is the “minimize triangles in transition” feature. If checked, it avoids triangles for durability and NVH. If unchecked it avoids rotating quads for crash compatibility meshes. 2021xFD07

Washer pattern: The mesh around hole feature has been enhanced to define the thickness of mesh layer using layer Diameter option. Earlier only the layer height option was available. The filter to define minimum and maximum diameter for hole recognition still exist. 2021xFD07

Oblong Holes: Holes need not be circular all the times. Mesher has been enhanced to recognize and mesh oblong holes by defining minimum and maximum diameter parameters. 2021xFD05

Solid Meshing Enhancements:

• Mapped Meshing: As in CAE, this meshing technique has been introduced in 3DX as well. It allows certain unsweepable regions to be hex meshed without defining any sweep direction. Color coding has been defined as well as green for mapped meshing and yellow for sweep meshing regions. 2021xFD09

Mesh Transformation Enhancements:

• Groups copy transformation: If a mesh with a defined group is transformed, its underlying group is automatically transformed as well. This obviates the need for manual definition of groups later. 2021xFD04

Model Analysis Enhancements:

• Interference Checker: The interference checker now takes thickness of shell elements from the section definition into account. This is applicable for both penetration and clearance. 2021xFD08

• Inertia Measurement: This tool has been present since quite a while. However, earlier releases only supported the geometry. Now the FEM is supported as well. This makes it easy to measure inertia of imported meshes. 2022xGA
• Comprehensive quality analysis: The tool now provides more information such as name of the criteria file used to define quality criteria, total number of meshes analyzed etc. In case criteria file is modified following the quality analysis, a synchronization tool (introduced later) will raise the flag. The quality analysis tool can be launched from mesh parts manager as well.  2021xFD07

Usability Enhancements:

• Unified Action Bar: There is no separate mesher app. The mesh and the section properties can now be defined in the same action bar. 2022xGA

Group Creation: The manual group creation method now has a rectangular trap selection option to capture the elements directly. This is one functionality that will be available in a Hot Fix. 2022xFD01

Remeshing: The multi domain selection tool has been introduced to define remeshing. That allows picking more than one region at the same time for remeshing. 2021xFD07

On-Fly Groups: As in Abaqus CAE, groups of mesh entities can be created on the fly in several contexts such as reference point in rigid body, supports in couplings, supports in solid sections etc. 2021xFD05