MSC Marc 2024.2

Hexagon is pleased to announce the release of MSC Marc 2024.2. The highlights of this release include many user experience enhancements for pre- and post-processing with Mentat, capabilities for modelling fluid pressure penetration, support for multi-threading for radiation analysis, hybrid contact formulation improvements, and support for multiple pyrolysis materials for recession.


Fluid pressure penetration modelling
It is now possible to simulate pressure penetration: when a fluid is pressurizing a seal it may deform the seal and bypass it, causing a leak. The new procedure is based on the contact pressure and simulates the effect of the fluid seeping in under contact. The fluid pressure can progressively penetrate under the contact surfaces to model the effect of the fluid under increasing pressure. In this realease, fluid pressure penetration is only supported for 2D analyses (plane stress or axisymmetric).



This new capability is useful in many engineering processes:

1. Sealing and gasket analysis:
- Simulate the behaviour of seals, gaskets, and O-rings when subjected to fluid pressure.
- Understand the effectiveness of sealing mechanisms under different loading conditions.
2. Hydraulic and pneumatic systems:
- Analyse the interaction between fluid pressure and surrounding structures in hydraulic and pneumatic systems.
- Assess the impact of fluid penetration on the integrity of system components.
3. Threaded connectors and joints:
- Model the behaviour of threaded connectors under fluid pressure, especially in deformable materials.
- Evaluate the sealing performance of threaded joints and connections.
4. Packaging and enclosure integrity:
- Assess the integrity of packaging materials and enclosures under varying external fluid pressures.
- Understand how fluid penetration may affect the protection of sensitive equipment or products.
5. Oil and gas industry applications:
- Analyse the interaction between wellbores and surrounding formations under fluid pressure.
- Simulate the sealing performance of wellbore components.
6. Aerospace applications:
- Assess the response of seals and joints in aerospace components under varying aerodynamic pressures.
- Simulate the behaviour of fuel tank seals and pressurized systems.
7. Biomechanics and soft tissue interaction:
- Simulate the interaction between biological tissues and fluids, such as blood flow in arteries.
- Evaluate the response of soft tissues to varying fluid pressures.



User interface, pre- and post-processing enhancements in Mentat
We are continually listening to our customers to get feedback on our products. In this version, several requests have been implemented to provide useful new capabilities and usability enhancements in Marc and Mentat.

Preprocessing enhancements
New tools have been added to improve the user experience, allowing you to easily remove previously defined features that are no longer used for the simulation. Commands to delete unused tables, coordinate systems, surface properties and contact tables will clear this unnecessary data. The option to delete unused beam sections has been modified so it is now in the appropriate menu.
The commands to delete a contact table or a contact interaction have been enhanced so that the user can enforce their deletion even if they are used in a loadcase or a job, after a confirmation request.
A fill command is now available in the table properties menu to shift and scale the data points of a table to fit exactly in the range defined by the minimum and maximum values of the independent and dependent variables. This is a complementary tool to the existing fit command which adjusts the min and max range to the data points.
Default values have been updated to better suit current best practices: These values include the incomplete Cholesky preconditioner for the iterative sparse solver, the follower force option when large strain assumption is selected for the job, and the accelerated separation check for contact control.



Post-processing enhancements
Path plots with the arc length option have been available for some time. The new version adds path plots according to positions (coordinates according to global or local results systems, cartesian, cylindrical or spherical systems).
It was already possible to highlight minimum and maximum values of outputs in contour, vector or tensor plots during post-processing. New options have been introduced to display only one of them.
A new option for the vector plot for post-processing has been added to keep a constant length for the arrows. In this case, the colours will indicate the associated value of the output. This option is useful for identifying the vectors, even if the associated value is very small.





User interface improvements
The select loads menu for activating or deactivating boundary conditions in a loadcase no longer blocks other menus. The model browser can now be used to step through the loadcases while this menu is open to verify that the correct boundary conditions are activated for each loadcase.
Icons to translate or rotate the model in the view space were already available. In 2024.2, a new icon has been added to directly access the view manipulation settings dialog box for defining tuned values for translation, rotation, and zoom increments.



Multi-threading support for radiation analysis
Use multiple CPUs now for the viewfactor calculation in radiation analysis with multi-threading. Marc supports several viewfactor calculation methods, but only the hemi-cube projection method, the preferred and most suitable method, is supported with multi-threading. Typical use cases impacted by this enhancement are manufacturing process simulations or aerospace equipment integrity simulations where non-linear thermal analysis with radiating cavities is required.



The speed-up obtained depends on the size of the model; the larger the model, the better the increase. For example, with a test model containing about 50,000 faces involved in the radiation, the time for the viewfactor calculation was reduced by a factor of 7.3 using 8 threads.
Hybrid contact formulation and selection changes in Mentat
The current default contact method is the standard node-to-segment algorithm, but we recommend the hybrid node-to-segment algorithm (double-sided contact algorithm) as the preferred contact method. In version 2024.2, improvements to the hybrid algorithm offer several advantages over the standard node-to-segment algorithm, such as reduced dependency on the order of the defined contact bodies (first, second) for accurate results and fewer convergence issues. The contact control dialog box has been updated so users can easily select the hybrid algorithm and set it as the new by default option for future simulation models.




Recession with multiple pyrolysis material layers
The remeshing shave option for automatic remeshing now supports multiple materials to run thermal analysis with several materials using the streamline pyrolysis model, with each material placed behind the other. In such analysis, the materials undergo recession. When the material in front is entirely receded, the material downstream will be automatically exposed to the external environment, and the boundary conditions such as receding surface, energy balance, film, and fixed temperatures. This simulation workflow is used in high-temperature applications like jet engine nozzles where, due to high temperatures, the material undergoes pyrolysis and there is material removal on the surface (recession).
An example is illustrated in the figure below. A base plate is covered with a coating of a different material. Each material is modelled as a separate contact body, where the meshes are created such that the nodes and edges of the adjacent bodies match. The materials are set up to use pyrolysis and recession, and remeshing using the shaver mesher is used for the material removal. In this example scenario, the recession is faster on the left-hand side of the boundary. After a while, the recession has reached through the thickness of the coating and continues in the base material.



MSC Marc is a powerful non-linear finite-element analysis solution to accurately simulate the product behaviour under static, dynamic, and multi-physics loading scenarios. Marc is ideal for product manufacturers looking for a robust nonlinear solution. It has capabilities to elegantly simulate all kinds of nonlinearities, namely geometric, material and boundary condition nonlinearity, including contact. Marc is the only commercial solution that has robust manufacturing simulation and product testing simulation capabilities, with the ability to predict damage, failure and crack propagation. This, combined with its multi-physics capabilities can help you couple thermal, electrical, magnetic and structural analyses, Marc is the complete solution that can address all your nonlinear simulation requirements.

Revolutionizing Advanced Non-Linear Simulation: Hexagon's Marc Solver Now on the Cloud


This webinar explores how the combination of SimScale’s cloud-native simulation tools with Hexagon’s Marc unlocks new levels of engineering efficiency, helping accelerate product innovation for companies worldwide.
Hexagon is a global leader in sensor, software and autonomous solutions. We are putting data to work to boost efficiency, productivity, and quality across industrial, manufacturing, infrastructure, safety, and mobility applications. Our technologies are shaping urban and production ecosystems to become increasingly connected and autonomous – ensuring a scalable, sustainable future. MSC Software, part of Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division, is one of the ten original software companies and a global leader in helping product manufacturers to advance their engineering methods with simulation software and services.

Owner: MSC Software
Product Name: MSC Marc
Version: 2024.2
Supported Architectures: x64
Website Home Page : https://hexagon.com/
Languages Supported: english
System Requirements: Windows & Linux *
Size: 5.4 Gb