Major new features of Release 14.

0
Adaptive Perfectly Matched Layer (APML)
This new release integrates a natural extension of the Perfectly Matched Layer (PML)
component, the Adaptive PML. The APML component relies on the surface supporting
the NRBC. The discretized domain supporting the Perfectly Matched Layer is
automatically generated from this one. This allows avoiding the natural limitation of a
single PML domain for large frequency domains, as several discretized domain adapted
for each frequency band can be generated easily. As a consequence, it is even more
attractive from a computational point of view than PMLs for multiple frequency
computations.

Enhanced Fan Noise excitations

The fan noise excitations supported by the LIGHTHILL_SURFACE and
MOHRING_SURFACE are enhanced by the support of different additional CFD inputs.
The three additional inputs are all expressed in the rotating reference frame, and are
transformed within the acoustic static reference frame through the specification of a
COUPLING_LINE and ROTATION_SPEED attached to the surface boundary condition.
The additional supported inputs are:
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Multiple Reference Frame (MRF): This simulation technique considers that the
flow inside the rotating part is steady in the rotating reference frame,and is thus
obtained by means of a steady computation of the Navier- Stokes equations
(RANS) translated into the rotating coordinate system. The interface between the
rotor-stator interactions is thus approximated. The obtained results are only
available at the blade passing frequency and its harmonics.
Non-Linear Harmonics - Harmonic Balance method (NLH): This method assumes
that the rotor solution could be decomposed into a set of Fourier modes. The
frequency associated to these modes are related to Tyler and Sofrin rules and
left to user decision. The interface between the rotor-stator interactions is
approximated. The obtained results are only available at the blade passing
frequency and its harmonics.
Sliding mesh with extraction of data inside the rotating frame: This method is very
similar to the previous available implementation as we still use unsteady Navierstokes equations solution, but in the rotating reference frame rather than in the
stator frame. The main advantage of this method lies in the ability to extract the
sources directly in the rotor frame. The obtained results are available at all
frequencies.

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Actran Release 14.0

Advanced Micro-Models for porous materials

The current revision of Actran provides additional micro-models extensions for improving
the accuracy of modeling porous materials with non-uniform sections and constrictions.
The Johnson-Champoux-Allard-Lafarge micro-model can be activated by specifying the
thermal permeability while the Johnson-Champoux-Allard-Pride-Lafarge model is
selected by adding the specification of viscous and thermal tortuosity.

Convected Visco-thermal acoustic elements

The current release of Actran provides an extension to the visco-thermal implementation,
which allows taking into account convection effects in restrained channels. This
extension is simply activated by specifying the MEAN_VELOCITY within the
corresponding VISCOTHERMAL component. It allows a better representation for areas
where the flow is important such as restrained channels present in catalytic converters
for instance.

Extended Turbulent Boundary Layers models

The current revision of Actran contains additional semi-empirical turbulent boundary
layer models to specify the frequency spectrum or the spatial correlation function. For
the frequency spectrum, besides the already available Goody and user spectra, the
Corcos, Efimtsov, Cockburn and Robertson, Maestrella, Smolyakov, Smolyakov and
Tkachenko and Modified Chase have been implemented. The spatial correlation models
of Chase and Efimtsov have also been integrated beside the existing Corcos model. As
most of these models are dedicated to particular applications (submarine, spatial,
aircrafts or cars), the range of supported applications is enlarged.

Mean Constrain elements

This new revision includes support for mean constrain elements, which can be used for
particular structural connections such as welding points of glue. These elements are
interpolation elements used to distribute mass and loads, and are similar to RBE3
elements of Nastran. These also allow the specification of ponderations between the
different independent nodes. These new elements are supported by the
MEAN_CONSTRAIN component.

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Actran Release 14.0

Point Mass elements

This new revision includes support for point mass elements. These represent
concentrated masses at a particular geometric point, including inertia and offset effects,
and are similar to CONM2 elements of Nastran. Such point masses allow representing
lumped structural parts such as seats, tires, taking into account their center of gravity
and induces inertias. These new elements are supported by the POINT_MASS
component.

Updated Spring elements

The implementation of springs has been improved in the current revision of Actran.
Discrete elements have been updated to represent a generalized spring element,
insuring rigid body modes by accounting offset between grids. This new implementation
is activated by specifying the ALLOW_RIGID_BODY keyword within a DISCRETE
component.

Convected sources
The formulation of acoustic sources in presence of flow has been updated and improved
in the current revision of Actran. This includes the support of spherical sources in density
formulation within an acoustic component, which has been corrected, but also the
support of planar and spherical sources in incident/scattered formulation. When present
within infinite elements for instance, these did not accounted for flow in previous
revisions, while they do in the current revision.

Rotating Acoustic components

The current release of Actran includes support for rotating acoustic components. These
allow modeling the acoustic transmission through complex rotating parts, which can be
coupled with static or other rotating components. The specification of the rotation
assigned to the acoustic component is supported by the ROTATION_SPEED data block,
while the coupling with static or other rotating components is insured through a
ROTATION_INTERFACE data block.

Impervious boundary condition

The handling of pervious or impervious conditions between 2 congruent acoustic
components has been made explicit in the current revision of Actran. When using the

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Actran Release 14.0

IMPERVIOUS boundary condition between 2 acoustic components, the local duplication

of pressure is now correctly insured, and propagated up to the infinite domain. This
behavior was implicitly performed in previous revisions of Actran by assigning a
VELOCITY boundary condition between the 2 acoustic components.

Field Point Loads

The current revision of Actran allows specifying local forces on an arbitrary location. This
enables to charge existing structures without requiring any additional meshing
operations to support the local force. These new load can be specified using the
FIELD_POINT_LOAD data block.

Centralized matrix parallelism

The current revision of Actran allows running a computation using a centralized matrix
parallelism. This type of parallelism avoids distributing the assembly and postprocessing of the computation while solving the computation in parallel using the
MUMPS solver. In addition, the master process can be suppressed from the factorization
to avoid excessive memory consumption on the master process. This type of parallelism
allows running hybrid modal-physical computations in parallel.

Access to elementary indicators in modal coordinates

The computation of elementary indicators for modal components has been simplified
and enlarged.
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Element forces can be computed from CBAR, CBEAM, CBUSH and CELAS
elements;
Element stresses and strains can be computed for 1d elements;
Multiple and single point constraints forces can be accessed;
The specification of output requests for particular elements is facilitated through
the usage of the STORAGE_ELEMENT data block.

Ffowcs Williams Hawkings improvements

Different additional features are included in the current revision of the FWH utility:
-

The power radiated through the FWH surface can be evaluated;

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Actran Release 14.0

Multiplication factors on mirror contributions can be handled using the

FWH_SYMMETRY_FACTOR keyword;
Evaluation of the pressure on a field mesh is enabled.

Enhanced multiple load capabilities for CAA

The current revision of Actran and iCFD allow easing the multiple load capabilities for
aero-acoustic computations.
Multiple source filtering can be specified in separated multiple loads. This allows
investigating the spectral content of the different regions of interest without encountering
truncated sources on the borders of the regions.
In addition, multiple DFTs can now be computed on multiple time domains, regions of
experimental or numerical data, allowing analyzing large time domain data.

Support of OpenFOAM files for ICFD

The current revision of iCFD allows using OpenFOAM native files for mean flow
interpolation and aero-acoustic sources computations.

Combustion excitations
The current revision of Actran allows modeling combustion excitation by specifying the
heat release rate distributed over a particular domain. This boundary condition is
modeled using the HEAT_RELEASE_RATE data block.

Actran for Nastran performance improvements

The current release of Actran includes a major performance improvement for Actran for
Nastran computations. The computation of the trim impedance can now be performed
using the MUMPS solver, which drastically decreases the computational time. The size
of the reduced impedances of the trims can additionally be decreased by reducing only
the normal displacement towards the structural component if a sliding coupling is
selected. Finally, the air gap layer present on top of the different trims is not mandatory
anymore, which allows to reduce the global size of the trim models.

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Actran Release 14.0

Actran for Nastran Extended physics and coupling methods

The physical components present within trim components and available coupling
methods with the structure and cavity for trimmed body analysis have been extended in
the current revision of Actran. The entire library of material and components present
within Actran, including thin shells, rigid body elements, beams or lumped porous
elements among others are now available for the description of the analyzed trim
component. Three new coupling methods for coupling the trim component to the cavity
and structure have been integrated, the sliding condition which imposes a normal
displacement continuity between the trim and structure, the air gap condition for coupling
the trim to the structure with a virtual air gap layer and the impervious coupling between
the trim and the cavity, which considers the trim as being made of closed pores on its
surface.

Nastran PEM
The Actran for Nastran technology is available directly within MSC Nastran. More details
on the Nastran PEM feature can be found in the Nastran Users guide.

Various other improvements

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Local quantities can be retrieved within their local coordinate system if specified
within the corresponding LOCAL_SYSTEM data block;
The value of a constrained mode within MODAL_BASIS component can be
made frequency-dependent using a TABLE
A RAYLEIGH_SURFACE component can now be included within a
STAGGERED_SOLVER, where it acts as a post-processing component;
Block names of CDB mesh format are now interpreted;
Velocity quantities can now be provided as scalars from Ensight files;
The current revision of iCFD supports star-CCM+ up to version 8.02;
The azimuthal revolution has been unified between Actran and Actran DGM;
The evaluation of quadratic indicators can be de-activated for ACOUSTIC, APML
and PML components by setting the POWER_EVALUATION to -1;
Different small improvements have been brought to the Nas2Act utility:
o Support of spaces within SPC1 cards;
o Support of XYPUNCH requests;
o Support of offset arguments for PCOMP cards;
o Update of material properties translation for MAT2 and MAT8 cards;
o Update of property translation for CONM2, RBE3 and CBUSH cards into
more adapted Actran equivalent properties;
o Correct translation of I12 entries for PBAR cards.

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Actran Release 14.0

BC_MESH boundary condition in ActranDGM

The current revision of ActranDGM integrates the BC_MESH capability, which allows
applying a structural result as an acoustic boundary condition, in order to evaluate the
acoustic radiation of these vibrations. The integration of this capability within ActranDGM
allows performing acoustic radiations of structures up to very high frequencies or on
important models sizes. This feature accepts transient or frequential data.

Incident sources in ActranDGM

The current release of ActranDGM allows attaching sources to the exterior domain
(outside the BUFFER component). This allows the usage of planar and spherical
sources in far field. The effects of convection and semi-infinite fields can also be
accounted for.

Enhanced Thompson boundary condition in ActranDGM

The current revision of ActranDGM includes an enhanced Thompson boundary condition.
Any combination of pressure, density or velocity can be applied on this boundary
condition, which can be used to simulate an excitation from a neighboring acoustic
component to take into account installation effects for instance.

Unified Graphical User Interface

All Actran graphical interfaces, ActranVI, PLTViewer, WATERFALLViewer can be
accessed within a single frame, which allows to compare different results in the different
environments in a single frame. It also provides a single console for all applications,
which allows performing pre- and post-processing operations within a single session file.

Advanced picking operations in ActranVI

The current revision of ActranVI allows hiding or showing part of the mesh present within
a render window. This eases the visual comfort when investigating interior complex parts
or results. In addition, nodes or elements can be easily retrieved directly within the
render window, providing connectivity or topological information for the selected entities.

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Actran Release 14.0

Modal Assurance Criterion Indicator (MAC)

The current release of ActranVI provides a graphical utility to compute the Modal
Assurance Criterion between different modal databases, provided from experimental or
numerical data. This criterion is used to compare the shape of the provided structural
modes.

Major bug fixes of Release 14.0

Reduced memory consumption for modal-physical hybrid
analyses
The memory consumption of modal-physical hybrid models has been drastically reduced
in the current revision of Actran.

Improved assembling time

The overall assembly time of Actran computations has been reduced in the current
release. Specifically, the assembly time of infinite elements and pentahedral elements
has been decreased.

Reduced disk access concurrence in parallel computations

For out of core computations involving many RHS and processors, different
improvements have been integrated. The backtransformation time required for multiple
RHS computations has been drastically reduced, while the disk access concurrence,
which is sometimes a bottleneck during the back-transformation phase of an analysis,
has been reduced in parallel computations.

Presence of interfaces in CFD files

When computing Lighthill sources at interfaces between CFD domains, spurious sources
were generated at these locations. This was the case for Fluent and OpenFOAM CFD
formats. In the current revision, these interfaces are now correctly handled.

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Actran Release 14.0

Multiple Load computations in Actran DGM

When running a multiple load computation inside ActranDGM, it was required that all
loads should converge to a steady state in order to stop the computation. As the different
loads are not strictly converging at the same time step, this behavior was thus more time
consuming than running manually the different loads. In the current revision, each
loadcase stops its computational work when reaching its own convergence.

Known issues resolved in Release 14.0

The computation of Lighthill sources inside a Water environment has been corrected;
The usage of the Skin name for a DOMAIN data block caused the de-activation of this
domain;
TABLEs are now supported for the Lame entries of an ISENTROPIC_SOLID material;
DOMAIN supporting a component can now be referenced within a STORAGE_NODE;
The usage of a LOCAL_SYSTEM for 2D computations has been corrected;
The modal acoustic radiation impedance evaluation in ACTRAN_MODAL is now
supported in parallel computations;
Correct support of FIELD for porous material properties;
The azimuthal merging of PLT output files without any MODE is now supported;
In ActranDGM, multiple NON_REFLECTING data blocks caused different issues at
handling the damping in buffer regions. This is corrected in the current revision;
In ActranDGM, the automatic evaluation of material and velocity properties for the FWH
utility correctly accounts for the OPEN_FWH option;
In ActranDGM, negative azimuthal orders are now supported for axisymmetric
computations.

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Actran Release 14.0