Editor’s Pick: Altair Releases HyperWorks 12.0

Altair Engineering recently released version 12.0 of HyperWorks, its suite of modeling, analysis, visualization, and data management solutions for linear, nonlinear, structural optimization, fluid-structure interaction, and multi-body dynamics engineering. As you might expect with a platform as comprehensive as HyperWorks, the new features and enhancements in this release range far and wide across all disciplines, making a short write-up such as this weak tea at best. Nonetheless, let’s run through a few items of note and link to more information.

The general scheme of the 12.0 release centers on furthering simulation-driven design and enhancements to finite element modeling, multiphysics analysis, and composites tools and systems. There’s also a lot of stuff, it appears, for automotive industry users. And one thing I should say right now is that the application suite remains available on HyperWorks On-Demand, Altair’s cloud service, so you’re covered if this on-demand service is your preferred work platform. BTW, HyperWorks On-Demand uses the company’s HPC (high-performance computing) PBS Works suite for workload management, job submission, monitoring, and workload analytics.

For simulation-driven design, the solidThinking Inspire digital product development system now allows designers to produce and study structurally efficient concepts in the early stages of a design. For design exploration, study, and optimization, the HyperStudy multidisciplinary tool has been completely redesigned.

On the user interaction front, there’s BasicFEA, a new user profile for quick model setup. The HyperMesh finite element pre-processor now includes various meshing functionalities for shell and solid meshing. This includes things like a mid-plane mesh generator with automatic thickness mapping from complex solid CAD geometry. Speaking of CAD, file import and export interoperability has been enhanced. GPU (graphics processing unit) support with a new costing schema has been added to the RADIOSS, OptiStruct, and AcuSolve implicit solvers. RADIOSS also sees numerous new material laws and failure models while AcuSolve’s new Ffowcs-Williams-Hawkings acoustic solver helps you predict noise levels at distant microphone locations.

Automotive users have new powertrain durability and large-scale NVH (noise, vibration, and harshness) analysis and optimization features. A couple of things you now have here are a one-step transfer path analysis and a multi-level sub-structuring solver in OptiStruct. Expansions to the MotionSolve multi-body systems modeling environment allow co-simulation with third-party components. There’s also a new multi-core licensing model that should make using HyperWorks and Altair Partner Alliance solvers for high-end multiphysics problems more cost-effective.

And that’s just a hint of the extensions, new features, and upgrades HyperWorks 12.0 offers. So here’s what to do: Hit the “overview” link at the end of the write-up. This will take you to a new features microsite that Altair set up. Scroll down a bit and you’ll find all sorts of videos organized by HyperWorks module, enabling you to pinpoint what you need to know for your unique circumstances. Each video also has a link to additional details. It’s all quite good.

Thanks, Pal. — Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood

Editor at Large, Desktop Engineering

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