CAEfatigue Software (Cf)
RELEASE NOTES
This document provides a brief description of the New Features and Feature Improvements added to the latest
release of the software. The document also provides a brief description of defects (errors) that were corrected.
Disclaimer
CAEfatigue Limited reserves the right to make changes in specifications and other information contained in this
document without prior notice.
The concepts, methods, and examples presented in this text are for illustrative and educational purposes only and
are not intended to be exhaustive or to apply to any particular engineering problem or design. CAEfatigue assumes
no liability or responsibility to any person or company for direct or indirect damages resulting from the use of any
information contained herein.
User Documentation: Copyright © 2022 CAEfatigue Limited.
This notice shall be marked on any reproduction of this documentation, in whole or in part. Any reproduction or
distribution of this document, in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of CAEfatigue Limited is
prohibited.
Please consult the Release Notes file that comes with the installation package for latest software updates.
CAEfatigue is a trademark or registered trademark of CAEfatigue Limited. The Hexagon logo is a trademark or
registered trademark of Hexagon AB. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.
CAEF:V2022.3:Z:Z:Z:DC-REL-PDF
15 December 2022 1
RELEASE NOTES
V2022.3
New Features or Feature Improvements:
• Robust Design:
o Robust Design can now do an analysis on both an MSC Nastran™ OP2 file, an MSC Nastran™
NEF file or a CAEfatigue TXT file (Control File). When using the TXT file, Robust Design will
support the use of any Solver file used in the Control file (i.e., OP2, ODB, RST, etc.). Robust
Design will also use the Cf results as Output Variables including Damage, RMS, MAX Stress, etc.
o A new Stochastic Design Improvement (SDI) feature has been added to Robust Design to allow
the user to define design variables that will be modified with the objective of reaching predefined
targets for the output variables. When successful, SDI analysis gives the User a new set of design
input variables that will produce a “most likely to occur” output result(s) that satisfies the design
targets.
o Beam/Bar elements are now visible as design variables in the Stochastic Study and SDI.
• GUI Changes:
o A new IN QUEUE setting that allows jobs to run consecutively permits the User to start several Cf
jobs at the same time, which will be queued to run one after the other as soon as a license frees
up.
o Load Schedule have been improved with the addition of a Channel Spreadsheet. This will allow the
channels to be reordered and renumbered the time history channels in an RSP file so that the User
can export the revised loading file.
o The Control File Wizard has been removed and replaced with the option to create a Control File
from scratch or from a template. Once created, the User can use a new feature called CONVERT
to change a Control File to a Process Flow format, if desired.
o Fringe Plotter improved with addition of "markers" to locate elements, nodes or coordinate
systems. The same markers are now used to provide the distance between 2 relative nodes in a 2-
Node Collision detection analysis.
o Fringe Plotter improved with addition of polar plot to view Spotweld analysis results.
o Material Source "Crossover" has been improved to include the capability to create/edit a cross over
file. All material ID from the solver can be read in and assigned automatically to a XML database
material.
o Material Source "Auto EN/SN" has been improved with the addition of an FKM properties box so
values of M1 through M4 can be defined.
o AUTO Multiaxial Assessment added to GUI and Control File.
o Multiple RST files now support in the GUI for Multi PSD Analysis.
• Solver Changes:
o TIME DOMAIN analysis has been improved with the added feature to do Peak-Valley Extraction on
the original time history prior to the analysis. This will "compress" the time history without
significantly affecting the damage calculations.
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RELEASE NOTES
o Stress combination method Maximum Principal and Signed Maximum Shear have been added to
options for the Time Domain vFTGPARM> Stress> Comb field.
o Within Control File, a Nastran SET file can now be used instead of Cf FSET3 format when reading
in sets of elements or nodes.
o Feature HOTSPOTS has been improved to significantly reduce evaluation time and memory
requirements for much larger models. Also, HOTSPOTS will now work with Adams modal transient
time domain input data.
o BS7608 weld analysis now supports 2D and 3D welds.
o A new NX Nastran source (NX) has been added to vIBFAT to specifically read NX Nastran OP2
files.
o Statistics added to bottom of LOG file for CPU Usage and Memory Usage.
Defect Fixes:
• Corrected issue with reading subcases from PUNCH file for TD analysis.
• Corrected issue with User Defined materials where Static Material entries were not retained.
• Corrected failure issue with outputting Neuber Stress (i.e., TRSTOUT=YES) when EN material information
is missing. User will now receive warning that Neuber Stress cannot be provided.
• Corrected issue when reading vRANDT from PSDM file for situation where one PSD is read from PSDM
file.
• Corrected issue with Fringe Plotter legend showing incorrect colors when corner results are used with a
Custom legend setting.
• Corrected issue with cycling Load Scenario now allowing more than 10 OP2 subcases to be used.
• Corrected issue with Critical Plane and 3D elements (used either in 3D seamwelds or BS7608). Correct
angles are now returned/displayed.
• CQUADR and CTRIAR are now recognized in time domain analysis when used with corner output.
• Corrected issue that caused failure when reading an RSP file with a very large number of channels.
• Corrected issue where software would stop without error message. Example when this would occur is
when Neuber Stress output was requested but no EN material data was given.
• Corrected error when doing Critical Plane analysis with EN material data that resulted in slightly different
answers when compared to Nastran Embedded Fatigue.
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15 December 2022 3
RELEASE NOTES
V2022.2
New Features or Feature Improvements:
• Robust Design has been significantly enhanced to expand the Nastran analysis types that can be used,
along with the types of input / output variables that can be defined in the analysis.
• Time Domain ONLY: 3D Seam Weld analysis feature added and now supports Maximum Principal and
Critical Plane analysis types. Mean stress correction also supported for None, Simple and FKM.
• Time Domain ONLY: BS7608 Weld feature added to allow various weld classes to be selected for weld
analysis. Supports Maximum Principal and Critical Plane types and mean stress correction None and FKM
(Simple).
• Fringe plotter feature has been added to allow Users to graphically define element / node sets for use in a
2D / 3D seam weld or BS7608 weld analysis within the Fringe plotter.
• TPL306 – 2D Seam Weld has been modified to replace the axle model with a bracket model that has more
appropriate geometry to represent seam welds. 2D seam welds for this example have been selected with
new Fringe Plotter selection tool described above.
• vMATXML entry added to allow Material Mapping between Nastran MAT IDs and an XML file. The User
must provide both an XML material database file and a “Crossover” file that links the Material IDs in
Nastran to the Material IDs in the XML file. SNXML/ENXML fields in vFTGDEF tell the software what
material i.e., SN or EN to use from the XML file.
• Multiaxial assessment analysis available in conjunction with Factor of Safety analysis.
• Added the ability to request a PSD of Response for a RANDOM analysis.
• Added support to export nodal average results (NODAV) to output file(s) in Time Domain analysis (for solid
elements only).
• Fringe Plotter graphics improved including new legend colors for fringe plots.
• Autodesk Mechanical XML files can now be converted to the XML file format support by CAEfatigue using
a new Utility tool called XML Database Creator.
• The Mean Stress Correction “INTERP-“ and “MMPDS” will automatically be used for MULTSN and
MMPDS analysis, respectively. This means that these stress correction options have been removed from
the GUI.
Defect Fixes:
• Corrected issue with writing H3D files from Utility>Tools menu for Modal Transient analyses using Adams
MNF files.
• Corrected issue with FOS analysis so it will stop if damage falls below threshold.
• Corrected issue with MULTIAX (for both Simple and Standard), where ABSMAXPR is not always computed
correctly.
• Corrected crash issue with TIMEOUT for very large output requests (>100000).
15 December 2022 4
RELEASE NOTES
• Corrected labeling error for mean SWT stress correction options in the GUI.
• Correct issue where seam weld entries were not exported to control file from Process Flow interface.
• Correct issue when doing Critical Plane analysis using EN data. Equivalent stress calculation is slightly off
from benchmark results using NEF.
• Correct Critical Plane vector visualization where some vectors were using radian angles but should have
used degrees.
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V2022.1
New Features or Feature Improvements:
• CAEfatigue now includes a new capability called Robust Design. This allows modification of Nastran
parameters from within CAEfatigue for doing multiple parametric studies.
• CAEfatigue now includes a new capability called Load Scenario. This allows the user to easily create
several popular loading scenarios as opposed to making these scenarios from scratch.
• CAEfatigue now support Multiaxial Assessment for a time domain analysis via the entry
vFTGPARM>MULTIAX.
• CAEfatigue now support a Factor of Safety (FOS) calculation like that available in Nastran Embedded
Fatigue (NEF). This is different than Margin of Safety so see documentation under vFTGPARM>FOS.
• CAEfatigue now supports Nastran H5 stress files from a SOL111 analysis of a composite model.
• CAEfatigue now supports Abaqus 2022 and LSDyna stress results for direct transient analysis (LTRANS).
• CAEfatigue now supports the specification of time increments in a Control File Time Domain nonlinear
quasi-static analysis (NQSTATIC). This is not supported in the Process Flow interface.
• CAEfatigue now supports the definition of duty cycle vFTGSEQ>UNITS within the Process Flow.
• Documentation:
o Added TPL308 to explain how time increments are dealt with in a nonlinear quasi-static
(NQSTATIC) analysis. Example uses an H5 file from MARC.
o Added TPL309 to explain support for Nastran composite (laminate) material analysis via an H5
output file, when doing a CF RANDOM analysis.
o Modified TPL314 – Wheel Fatigue – to showcase the new LOAD SCENARIO and MULTIAXIAL
ASSESSMENT capability.
o Added sections in User Guide to introduce the new Robust Design and Multiaxial Assessment
capabilities.
15 December 2022 5
RELEASE NOTES
Defect Fixes:
• Modified TPL302 to correctly reference the use of a Nastran SOL106 solver file and not a MARC stress file.
• Defect with SGATE and VECTOR has been fixed so TPL361_1 through 7 will now run.
• Corrected Ansys reader to accommodate multiple files having element numbers out of sequence.
• Corrected error for setting Young’s Modulus to CODE material in AutoSN/EN calculation. AutoEN using
material OTHER is not yet supported.
• Corrected issue in multiple PSD analysis. PSDM channel mapping box will now appear even if Cf is unable
to ready solver subcases. In these cases, User will enter mapping manually.
15 December 2022 6
