Release 2024 R2 includes new features and enhancements that result in product behaviors that differ from previous releases. These behavior changes are presented below.
HPC Platform Services (HPS). The Ansys Distributed Compute Services (DCS) application has evolved into a newer family of technology components represented by HPC Platform Services (HPS) while the former DCS framework has been completely removed. HPS supports the same set of functionalities as DCS when used from Mechanical.
For all analytical cracks as well as the Arbitrary Crack, the default setting of the Crack Faces Nodes property has changed from Off to On. The application generates the associated crack face Named Selections by default.
If cracks are included in the analysis, and you add a new Pressure load, the Applied By property is set to Direct by default. In prior releases, the default setting was Surface Effect.
Now, when you define Pressure and Force loads using tabular data, they no longer support the Independent Variable property when it is set to Step, if a SMART Crack Growth object is also defined.
During a SMART Fatigue Crack Growth analysis, the MAPDL commands written to the input file for Increment of Crack Extension options have changed. Now, the command CGROW,SOPT,DAMN/DAMX is used instead of CGROW,FCG,DAMN/DAMX.
Contact Split Program Controlled Behavior Change. When the Contact Split (DMP) property (Analysis Settings > Advanced) is set to Program Controlled, the application now automatically performs contact pair splitting during the solution when the number of contact regions is less than the number of:
Cores when the Distributed option is enabled.
Or...
Processes when the Hybrid Parallel (Mechanical APDL) option is also enabled.
In prior releases the application always performed contact split when Contact Split (DMP) property was set to Program Controlled.
Program Controlled Setting of the Constraint Type Property. For Bonded contact using the MPC formulation, if the Program Controlled setting of the Constraint Type property does not select either Projected, Displacement Only or Distributed, All Directions, then automatic constraint type detection is performed internally by the solver. And, see the description for KEYOPT(5) in the TARGE170 element section of the Mechanical APDL Element Reference for a listing of the internal settings.
Rigid-To-Flexible Contact. In the previous release, for a Contact Region defined between a rigid body surface and flexible body, the application created a duplicate layer of target elements (called an insulation layer). This resulted in an overlapping of the target elements at the same location and caused a performance bottleneck for large assembly models. Now, this duplicate layer of target elements is no longer created and therefore improves solution processing performance for those models.
Contact Properties in Motion have been updated. Refer to Contact Properties for details and see the table below for migration paths for affected settings. Note that some default options have been changed. Based on these changes, results may differ from solutions in 2024 R1.
Settings in 2024 R1 Migrate to these settings for 2024 R2 Surface Type = Surface Node Only Option = Use Surface Type = Multi Point Node Only Option = No Longer Supported Stiffness Type = d-P Spline Damping Type = Program Controlled (Constant) Damping Type = Program Controlled (Ratio) - Stiffness Type = d-P Spline Point Check = Program Controlled (Both) Point Check = Program Controlled (Target Points Only) - Bushing Joint . Now, when you set the Formulation property to Bushing, the default setting of the Element Coordinate System property has changed from Global Coordinate System to Reference Coordinate System.
Error Applying Boundary Conditions to Cylindrical Surfaces. In previous releases, when you applied the boundary conditions listed below on a cylindrical surface, the application did not always apply constraints on nodes whose nodal coordinate system aligned with the Global Coordinate System. The application now processes constraints correctly for these boundary conditions.
Frictionless Support
Cylindrical Support
Displacement (when the Defined By property is set to Normal To)
Create Velocities and Sync Analysis Settings. In previous releases, the context (right-click) menu option, Create Velocities and Sync Analysis Settings, for the Imported Loads (Group) object, created individual Imported Velocity child objects for each RPM value included in the linked upstream system and automatically set the Mapped Data property to To Input File and synchronized the Analysis Settings object with the settings from the upstream result file.
Now, this option creates only one Imported Velocity child object and automatically sets the Mapped Data property to To Binary File, the Specify RPM property set to All, and synchronizes the Analysis Settings object from the upstream result file.
This feature is now only supported with the Structures AI+ license.
In previous releases, the application performed prediction and displayed table data based on a default core count of 4 cores. Now, the application uses the core count specified in the Solve Process Settings.
Now, to view prediction data from the Solution Information object, you must first activate a preference. From the Options dialog, activate the Resource Prediction During Solve preference in the Analysis Settings and Solution group. The preference is available under the Resource Prediction (Static Structural, Modal and Harmonic Response) category.
Incident Wave Source. Now, when you select the Back Enclosed Loudspeaker option for the Wave Type property, the Pressure setting for the Excitation Type property is no longer supported.
Remote Boundary Conditions. The contact pairs created for Remote Force, Remote Displacement, and Moment that 1) have the Behavior property set to Rigid and 2) that are scoped to an edge with noncollinear nodes, now use the contact element CONTA177. In previous releases these contact pairs used contact element CONTA175.
Point Mass. In previous releases, the Element APDL Name property enabled you to assign an APDL parameter name to the mass element type. Now, the Element APDL Name property will be assigned to the mass element number.
The Drivetrain Toolkit in Motion now contains specific parameters for gear Web Mass Information, to allow the use of more accurate mass and moment of inertia values.
The Record Frequency Response option for a Motion analysis in Mechanical Analysis Settings has been removed in version 2024 R2. Models using this option will no longer produce accurate results. FFT-related properties have been moved to Harmonic Acoustics analysis and you should now access them from there.
Tables. The user interface for creating and editing tables has the following improvements:
You no longer need to add a Tables object before adding a Table. Mechanical now automatically creates the Tables object.
You can now add or import tables directly from the > menu.
The icons on the ribbon for importing tables from files and creating tables were updated.
For additional table-related changes, see Loads/Supports/Conditions
Velocity and Acceleration Unit System Change. Now, during Response Spectrum and Random Vibration analyses, acceleration and velocity results use their actual unit systems. In previous releases, these boundary conditions used length as their unit system.