Opera-15: Electromagnetic Software for Designing…

Cobham Technical Services - Vector Fields Software is well known for producing efficient, easy to use finite element software for modelling and analysing electromagnetic systems and devices. The new version of Vector Fields Software's flagship electromagnetic and multiphysics simulation software suite, Opera 15, includes new capabilities and enhancements to previous released versions. Highlights of this release include:

3D Static Stress Solver

Static stress and strain from element force densities (produced in other multiphysics analyses) or external loads. The solver supports user defined functional material properties.

Transformer and Reactor Environment

Graphical user interface for building, analysing and optimizing Transformers and Reactors. Build models in minutes with little or no experience of finite element methods required.

CARMEN Control File Widget

Quick interactive production of advanced control regimes for 3D rotating machines of up to 3 moving regions.

ME2D – 2 Dimensional Electrical Machines Environment

This popular environment has been improved with a new interface and a range of new features and analysis options including the ability to use the Opera Optimizer.

Document Content:

1. 3D Stress solver – New Transformer & Reactor Environment (TE3D) - New
2. Electrical machines environments - Improved
3. Current source boundary condition - New
4. Graphical Circuit Editor – Improved
5. CARMEN control file widget - New
6. Shorter solution times - Improved direct sparse solver methods for Opera-2d
7. Opera Manager, Optimizer and Batch Processor – Updated to enhance usability and flexibility
8. Opera-2d Pre-Processor - Improved functionality
9. Command language – Enhanced tools for automation
10. Wildcard solver licence – Extended to include new solver type
11. Additional Support Knowledgebase – 28 new articles

For more information on any of the new features, general product enquiries or to order now please contact our sales departments at:

UK: e: vectorfields.sales@cobham.com, t: +44 (0) 1865 370151

US: e: vectorfieldsinc.sales@cobham.com, t: +1 (630) 851 2106

For information on installing or upgrading to Opera-15 please click here.

3D Stress solver

This is a new solver for Opera-3d, which mirrors existing functionality available in Opera-2d. It calculates the defor¬mation, stresses and strains of a body subject to external and internal forces.

Stress analysis can analyse isotropic and anisotropic (orthotropic) materi¬als. The material properties can be specified as numeric values or as expres¬sions. For example, the thermal expansion coefficients could be functions of temperature or position. A model can be deformed by internal or external forces and constrained in a range of ways.

The solver will automatically ignore any elements that do not have mechanical properties assigned thus minimising the computational effort required and enabling the same model to be use in EM, Mechanical and Thermal simulations with ease.

Transformer and Reactor Environment (TE3D)

In addition to the 2D and 3D electric machines environments, a new transformer and reactor environment has been released alongside Opera-15. The environment provides a graphical user interface to the Opera-3d software for rapidly designing transformers and reactors. TE3D makes it extremely simple for users to employ advanced and precise finite-element analysis to evaluate design ideas. It is also integrated with the optimizer so that users can quickly determine optimal design configurations with little or no manual input.

For more information on TE3D please click here.

Electrical machines environments

A large number of features and enhancements have been made to the 2D version of the machines environment (ME2D), these include:

1. The definition of stator geometries has been unified across all internal rotor machines (which includes double layered windings that were previously not available for permanent magnet machines).
2. PM generator analysis.
3. Easier to customise
4. Improvement and generalisation of GDF2COMI our SPEED interface.
5. The dynamic permanent magnet analysis now includes both AC & DC drives.

6. Integration with the Optimizer
7. A significant overhaul to the documentation that is supplied with the environment.

Along with these updates to ME2D the electrical machines environments can now be supplied for a free trial period. Please ask your nearest distributor or the sales teams at Vector Fields Software if interested.

Please follow the links for more information on ME2D or ME3D.

Current source boundary condition

A new current source boundary condition makes it possible to drive current through any external boundary in the model. This is in addition to the Voltage source boundary condition that is already available. The new boundary condition is available within CARMEN, DEMAG, TOSCA and ELEKTRA.

Graphical Circuit Editor

The graphical Circuit Editor has been enhanced to provide more information about the status of components when viewed in the post processor. Components may also be added, modified and moved using the command language, making the Circuit Editor a full replacement to the use of loop circuits (although these remain available to be used by legacy scripts).

CARMEN control file widget

A new widget for creating CARMEN control files has been included within the Command File Editor for Opera-3d. The widget will automatically pick up the region groups defined within the model and provides a tabbed dialog containing a selection for the type of motion of the region group and sections to build up the equations of motion.

Shorter solution times

The implementation of the Direct Sparse Solvers (DSS) in Opera-2d has been improved. DSS were introduced in Opera-14 and can provide a significant increase in the speed of calculation compared with Opera’s iterative solvers (see illustration below). There have however been occasional situations where DSS takes longer to converge. In these situations the analysis programs will now automatically switch to the iterative methods temporarily until past the cause of the difficulty in convergence.

Whilst the benefits of the DSS solvers are model dependent, typical users can expect a five to ten fold speed up over the standard iterative solvers.

Examples:

1. Static Solver - a large model (368k elements, 736k nodes) solves 12 times faster

(1:32 instead of 19:41 on Core i7)

2. Steady State Solver - a standard size model (73k nodes, 145k elements) solves 2 times faster

(0:45 instead of 1:36 on Core i7)

Opera Manager, Optimizer and Batch Processor

Several interface enhancements have been made to the Opera Manager, Optimizer and Batch Processor. These include:

Opera Manager

1. Tabbed folder windows
2. New project folder tool buttons
3. Switch between 2D Direct Sparse and Iterative Solvers
4. /top (Windows) or –top (Linux) to add jobs to the top of the Batch Queue

Batch Processor

1. More robust handling of large job queues
2. Display can be toggled between Pending, Running and Completed
3. Queue processing order can be set to give priority to local or common batch queue

Optimizer

1. The facility to now run up to three optimizations simultaneously
2. Control over the number of initial and experimental designs the optimizer
3. Activity log

Opera-2d Pre-Processor

In addition to the major developments to Opera-2d an extensive list of minor enhancements and new features have been added. These include:

1. Previous and next case tool buttons
2. RM gaps increased to 3
3. Increased element limits to 10 million
4. Now able to open upto 100 tables concurrently and a list of files can be opened simultaneously.
5. COMOUTPUT command now writes user functions to a separate .comi file including $ Function so that they are redefined when the command file is run.

Command language

One distinctive feature of the Opera software suite is the built-in command language.

Opera automatically generates command (.comi) files containing a record of the commands used within a design process. With little effort these files may be customised to facilitate structured engineering management that can include quality assurance and a high level of automation for subsequent design iterations.

For the release of Opera-15 improvements have been made to enhance the flexibility and ease of use of the command language and commands for new modules, such as the STRESS/ST solver have been added. These include:

1. Increased program limits (nested loops increased to 100, maximum number of field points in CIRCLE, LINE and PLOT increased to 100,000)
2. Enhanced syntax for text functions
3. New text functions (%DESCRIPTION(variable), %QUOTE(string), %REPLACE(string,substr1,substr2,count), %STRLENGTH(string))
4. New expression RAN(seed), pseudo-random number generator
5. Save option for function to a table file
6. New System variables (ANALYSIS, MINIMUM, MAXIMUM, GROUP Command)
7. Additional Boolean parameters added to CLEAR command (USERVARIABLES, STRINGVARIABLES, LOGFILES)

Wildcard solver licence

The wildcard solver licence has become very popular since its introduction in Version 13. With this release a wildcard will also be able to launch an additional instance of the Stress/ST solver provided a licence is already held.

A wildcard is a floating solver license that can be used to run any solver that is licensed on a seat. For example, if you have a seat that includes TOSCA, ELEKTRA, STRESS/ST and a wildcard, then the wildcard can be used as an additional TOSCA, ELEKTRA or STRESS/ST solver licence when required.

Additional Support Knowledgebase

Since the Launch of Opera 14 we have also generated 28 new articles covering general software usage, hints, common questions, tips, command script samples and specific applications. These are included in the Additional Software Knowledgebase (ASK) document which is distributed with the latest version of the software to assist you with your simulations as well as several new or updated tutorials added to the User Guides.