This page contains list of changes, fixes and new features in FEM-Design 23.

Version 23.00.002

Released: 29th of April 2024

Added:

• Plastic shell calculation results are extended by stresses and strains.
• Fdscript command to get GUID of selected items.
• Hide layer command was added to the menu that pops up at right-clicking in the model window.
• Reset display status command is added to the menu that pops up at right-clicking in the model window.
• Properties of plates in a steel bar-shell model can be modified individually.
• New API functionalities. (see details at "API changes in details" Added part)

Modified:

• Chapter dialog was modified to enable a smoother workflow.
• Colour is added to Field dialog, so from now on it can be used to change its colour instead of Change appearance command.
• At the start, FEM-Design selects the most efficient (best) graphical card (if any real monitor is connected to it), not the the primary one (set by Windows). The option is added to the  settings dialog: Settings/Environment/Graphic engine/Graphic card...
• FEM-Design and FEM-Design Setup Wizard don't show up separately in the Installed apps list anymore.
• Installer reference slideshow does not stop when the installation is finished.
• A more informative message is sent when File/Export to/IDEA-Statica - Checkbot is used for an existing IDEA StatiCa project.
• In Danish national annex wind load generation uses the updated values for cdir according to  DS-EN 1991-1-4 (NA 2024)
• Track tab is introduced for train traffic loads in order to control the number of rails.

Fixed:

Analysis

• In case of CLT and general laminated composite stress calculations the calculation time was long with new generation Intel processors with P-Cores and E-Cores.
• There was no plastic calculation for shells converted from steel bars.
• Unicode file handling on Fortran side to manage files in different windows environments.

CAD/System

• Drawing layer editing could crash.
• Editing drawing layers could cause crash in some special cases.
• Labels of shells and bars displayed in section view were not hidden.
• Sometimes preview was missing in open dialog.
• Spelling error in dimension dialog.
• Subtract word was misspelled.

Documentation

• Chapter level indicator did not work well when multiple chapters with different level were selected.
• Chapter titles were not broken into multiple lines if they did not fit to the page.
• Current page may have jumped unexpectedly when a report was switched off.
• Decimal number of the tables could be overwritten to the default value in doc module, if the file was saved at FD22.
• Display result could cause crash in some very special cases.
• Font properties of Field objects were not modified properly.
• Font type of texts did not change in paper space despite it was changed in the editor.
• If Zoom independent option was turned on in Documentation module, numeric values are not shown fully.
• In the texts the line spacing was not considered correctly in case of empty lines.
• Number of pages was not counted correctly in some cases if some of the Reports were switched off.
• Reset to report's default command worked on report independent data in graphical windows.
• Some units were not correct in the pop-up dialog of table columns in the Documentation module
• Text width limit was too big in the Text dialog.

Foundation design

• If the "Calculate soil as solid element" option was switched on, it was impossible to create curved wall foundations.

Graphic engine

• Automatic label background was too dark in OpenGL graphic mode.
• Change of graphic engine mode to DirectX caused crash in case of some graphic cards.
• Multi-line labels had a small unwanted gap on the right side.
• Numerical values were not displayed, at some graphical cards, when graphical engine was set to OpenGL mode.

IFC

• IFC reference layers could not be unlocked.

Input (structural)

• Copying properties of a concrete or steel shell to an other shell with different material caused crash in some cases.
• Disabled cell was not gray in plastic data table of steel shells.
• Selected shells were not visualized correctly at edge connection modification.
• Steel/Plastic data dialog crashed if the mouse was hovering over some of the table cells.

License system

• After loading the model the Design licenses (steel/concrete/timber/etc...) were occupied, even though the calculations were not valid, if the model contained any stored result.

Loads

• Displacements of bars caused by traffic loads were not transformed into global coordinate system.
• Excitation force command caused crash in some cases if load cases used by it were deleted previously.
• Excitation force dialog could crash in some special cases.
• Filling Excitation force dialog could fail.
• Load modifier function in traffic loads was not applied on train simple line models.
• Optional status in load group combinations could lead to wrong results in max. of load groups calculation.
• Selecting objects for Properties option of  Footfall analysis data/Full excitation caused crash.
• Surface loads could have been added to train traffic load models.
• Unnecessary error message was sent when Internal force components of more traffic loads was modified in Properties dialog.

RC bar design

• Crash could occur after modifying the cross-section in manual design.
• If an RC bar had intermediate section, RC design calculation caused crash.

RC shell design

• Modifying material for RC shells that were already members of a design group might have caused crash.
• RC shell buckling check was carried out even in points in pure tension.
• RC shell detailed result crashed if there were serviceability load combinations in the model but none of them was allowed for the crack width calculation.
• RC Shell shear design parameter dialog lost some data when changing between design approaches.

Results

• At List tables, scientific form didn’t consider Regional decimal symbol option being switched on.
• Displaying plastic shell condition result was flashing in some view.
• Exporting bar stress detailed results to .docx caused crash in some special cases.
• In some cases Custom results were displayed only after an other result with Automatic numeric value options was displayed.
• It was not possible to create numeric values with the "Original shape" mode for concealed bars.
• Labeled sections result for periodic excitation calculation caused crash.
• Labelled section calculation ran even if it was not necessary.
• Listing virtual bar results for maximum of load combinations caused crash.
• Local stability result numeric value contained "%%" instead of "%".
• Modification of reinforcement was ignored in plastic calculation in some special cases.
• Numeric value/Select/Original shape option did not work for virtual bars.
• Numeric values and labels with background were not highlighted if the cursor was hovering over an empty part of the background.
• Numeric values changed in some cases when rotating view, if the Zoom-independent option was on.
• Numerical values were changed in some cases when zooming in or out the displayed result.
• Reaction and connection force detailed results were not displayed correctly for Max. of load combinations/All components results.
• Reaction/Connection result's resultant arrows may have disappeared due to scaling or rotating the model view.
• Regression in listing with regional decimal symbol: several tables ignored it.
• Result animation background color was always white
• Settings/Display/Result/Virtual bar/Result step was not saved with the model.
• Text was misplaced in Result point label dialog.
• The characters at palette legend and title in the documentation module's Graphical window were was not so nice and sharp as in were in model space.

Steel design

• In Steel bar buckling length tool window the "For both flanges" option was always disabled.

Steel joint design

• Result window disappeared sometimes in steel joint module and could not be restored.

StruXML

• point_support_load_type was missing LoadType attribute in StruXML
• StruXML had an interpretation range error in Plastic Data: elasto_plastic_strain_limit_option_U > 0, now >= 0

Timber design

• The message was not accurate if creation of a timber panel design group failed due to mismatching members.

User interface

• Crash could happen upon manual modification of label font size/width.
• Spelling in settings dialogs.
• The program crashed sometimes  while using Filter.

API

• More input validation is applied in the API. (see details at "API changes in details" Fixed part)

Misc

• DELTABEAM name spelling was fixed according to Peikko convention.
• Idea StatiCa Relink did not work if the IDEA StatiCa project name differed from the FEM-Design model name.
• In timber panel quantity estimation table the total weight was  always listed in tons instead of the unit set by the user.
• Tools/Find function did not work for GUIDs.

API changes in details:
Added:
1. New user command to query selection CXL CS2EDIT SEL2CLIP usable in the command box, <cmduser> or pipe command places current selection to the clipboard as list of guids, one per line.

2. Calculation setup added for ground acceleration and excitation force, see example.fdscript for details.

3. Calculation setup for load combinations can configure 'Calc' column it defaults to "1" so old scripts shall run with no behavior change setting "0" turns off that combination 'CS' can not be configured as it is implied form the nature of the combination and is either forced or not applicable (same as before).

4. Calculation setup for load combinations new attribute "PlShellCalcStr" to configure calculation of stresses and strains.

5. Design parameter cross-sections for auto-design now can be set via API.

Fixed:
That may especially impact the applycfg command. Some configurations that previously worked may now be rejected with a validation error, that appears in the log file. In case you get such notice and believe the value should not be rejected, please contact support,
so we can look into it.

 

Version 23.00.001

Released: 12th of February 2024

Added:

• Labelled sections are preserved when pasting files.

Modified:

• When line supports are defined by selecting existing lines, only one support is created even if multiple identical lines are selected.
• Wind load calculation is modified to consider the area of the whole climate panel instead of the area of A/B/C/etc. regions.
• Calculation of RC shell maximum crack spacing is slightly modified (the detailed calculation appears in the detailed results).

Fixed:

• For some edits of the applied reinforcement regions, the assignment of the resulting new regions to shells did not work.
• CLT design calculation did not consider the kfi value.
• Company settings did not import the title blocks and documentation templates to the correct folder.
• Colour palette of Colour schema was not saved.
• Equivalent uniform moment factors were not calculated accurately in some special cases.
• Incorrect reference was removed from steel bar detailed results.
• Steel bar interaction check did not use the internal forces that acted in different sections.
• Interaction check was unnecessarily done for steel bars without compression.
• Sway buckling mode of a steel bar buckling length is considered in the calculation of the equivalent uniform moment factors (Cmy, Cmz).
• DWG export did not consider correctly the window settings in some cases.
• The state of the Manage note-window was not refreshed when "Display only visible notes" was checked.