Simufact releases Simufact Forming 2021
April 9, 2021
Simufact Engineering GmbH, Hamburg, Germany, has announced the release of Simufact Forming 2021. This simulation software includes five key highlights: new tetrahedral elements for meshing, assistance for damage modelling, a new finite volume solver, and the capacity to simulate new process types such as hydroforming.
Significantly faster calculation with the same accuracy
The newly-developed tetrahedral element for meshing makes simulation up to 2.8 x faster compared with the previous tetrahedral elements. A new finite volume method (FVM) solver has also been developed which specifically targets hot forming processes and is up to 1.5 x faster than the existing FVM solver. The new time step control option has been implemented, providing the user with a speed gain of 40–70%.
New damage model assistance for increased accuracy
Simufact has introduced an assistant for damage modelling in Simufact Forming 2021 software which offers ease of use and increased accuracy for the user. The damage model is said to have an enormous impact on the accuracy of predicting the damage occurrence as well as the force progression. Simufact has stated that the creation of a damage model in the simulation has been very difficult and, therefore, has been previously neglected in simulations. In Simufact Forming 2021, the user enters the damage characteristics from experiments, including equivalent strain and the averaged Lode angle at failure. The damage modelling assistant automatically calculates, generates and calibrates the damage model’s parameters. In addition, the user also benefits from the newly-generated damage model, which enables accurate calculations in the future.
First approach to predict properties under loads
With Simufact Forming 2021, after process simulation, the user looks forward to structure simulation with basic functionalities. The structural simulation helps the user to determine the maximum load before the component fails and the force progression of a dynamic load. With this new feature, the user has the possibility to simulate new process types, such as hydroforming.
Simulation transfer to and from third-party products via MpCCI Mapper
This new feature allows the user to transfer process simulation results from the software into any format with the help of the MpCCI Mapper interface, provided by technology partner Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI). The interface provides methods to map, compare and transfer simulation results and experimental data in integrated simulation workflows. Thus, the user benefits from the ability to transfer results from third- party products prior to Simufact Forming and afterwards.
“Simufact Forming is an established software solution for the simulation of metal forming manufacturing processes,” stated Dr Gabriel Mc Bain, Senior Director of Product Management. “Our top priority is to help our customers increase their efficiency and productivity as well as reduce costs and time-to-market by shifting physical tryouts to virtual testing.”
Mc Bain concluded, “With the release of Simufact Forming 2021, we take speed, stability, as well as user experience of our solution to the next level. We are pleased to announce the new version of Simufact Forming 2021 – faster and more exciting to use than ever before!”
