Altair HyperXtrude 2022.2 Release Notes

Altair HyperXtrude is a suite of finite element solvers for simulating the following manufacturing processes.
  • Binder Jet Sintering
  • Metal Extrusion
  • Polymer Extrusion
  • Quenching
  • Calibration
  • Metal Rolling
  • Friction Stir Welding
  • Resin Transfer Molding

Highlights

Highlights of this release include:
  • The metal extrusion solver now supports the variable bearing start feature

Binder Jet Sintering

New Features

Toppling prediction
The sintering solver predicts if the part will topple during the analysis. This feature is available for shrinkage and compensation analyses. This is enabled by default and can be modified using the parameter CheckToppling with values no or yes. The analysis is terminated if the part is going to tip over. (HXT-555)
Compensation correction algorithm
A new algorithm for computing compensation is implemented. Invoke by setting the CompensationCorrectionType to 1 (this is the new default).
When the CompensationCorrectionType is set to 0, the old algorithm that computes displacements based on both gravity and sintering stress is used for correction.
The improvement for the compensation analysis is more robust in computing the compensation for models showing large deformation due to gravity during sintering analysis. This approach for compensation analysis is based on computing the compensation separately for the deflection due to gravity and shrinkage due to sintering. It also reduces the number of compensation iterations required for convergence for the models with overhanging parts without appropriate setters. (HXT-556)

Enhancements

Improvements in contact behavior
  • During compensation analysis, the tolerance for detecting contact with the base platform is increased.
  • The solver does not stop when self-contact occurs during compensation iterations. If there is such contact in the last step, an alert about the defect appears.
Export extract point results in CSV format
The sintering extract point results are now exported in a CSV format. This helps to easily plot and visualize these results. (HXT-569)

Resolved Issues

Initial Grain Size
For the ArrheniusType1-Modified grain growth model, the solver no longer takes the final grain size of the previous compensation iteration as the initial size of the next iteration. (HXT-539)
Initial Relative Density
The issue of computed initial relative density (based on bounding volume) not within the accepted tolerance of input initial relative density is resolved. (HXT-561)
Extract point results
The extract point feature, which is used to extract all the relevant results at a given coordinate, is fixed and no longer causes a solver crash. This issue is resolved (HXT-565)

Metal Extrusion

New Features

Non-uniform start of bearing regions
The solver module is now enhanced to support the non-uniform start of the bearing region in the model. In prior releases, the bearing region always starts with the BEARING3D region of the meshed model created either by drag or solid map. In this release, a new feature to consider non-uniform bearing start and especially before the start of the BEARING3D region (in the tet4-meshed zone) is implemented. This enables analysis of more complex dies with such bearing regions. When this feature is implemented in Inspire, the concept of starting the bearing profile curve in addition to the ending bearing profile curve will be introduced. This feature can now be used in place of mandrel offset for the inner bearing regions of a hollow profile. (HXT-216)

Enhancements

Variable timestep determination in a multi-cycle analysis
Inspire Extrude interface has options to either automatically determine or manually specify the variable timestep data for transient analysis. This data is based on the meshed length of the billet. In a multi-cycle analysis, the solver automatically scales this data from cycle to cycle when the process data, mainly the billet length, changes due to the starter billet option. This module of the solver is greatly enhanced in this release by recomputing the data instead of a local scaling of the timestep.
As a part of this enhancement:
  • Both the number of timestep ranges and the number of timesteps in each range can change from cycle to cycle. This provides greater flexibility in arriving at a good timestep value and also computational efficiency.
  • The solver prints the detailed statistics of timesteps and billet length consumed during the cycle. This is printed for each cycle and every range in a cycle before the simulation begins. These complete statistics helps with understanding the timestep data in depth. (HXT-494)

Polymer Extrusion

New Features

Wall slip model based on polymer viscosity
The current slip velocity model requires coefficients that are dependent on the local viscosity of the polymer and the user is expected to input the slip coefficient that can vary by orders of magnitude. To overcome this limitation, a new wall slip model that internally accounts for the local viscosity is implemented. For this model, the value of slip coefficient C is specified as follows:
  • C = 0 for full slip condition at the wall
  • C = 1 for a full stick condition at the wall
  • 0 < C < 1 for sliding friction at the wall
(HXT-529)

Quenching

Enhancements

New heat transfer model for air fan quenching
A new correlation to compute the Nusselt number (and thereby the heat transfer coefficient) is implemented. This correlation accounts for the fan distance from the quench surface and the radial distance of the integration points from the fan axis through a geometric relationship. All dimensionless numbers in the correlations are computed at the film temperature. This results in improved accuracy of the of air fan quenching. (HXT-579)