Improvements

Issues Short description of the source problem resolved in this version
Data Import/Export context FX-23145 In the Data Import / Export context, the creation of supports that are outside the finite element domain is now forbidden: a warning message is displayed to the user. This improvement intends to limit the risk of user errors, especially in case of symmetries and/or periodicities.
Data Import/Export context FX-14047 The mechanical analysis context of Flux will no longer be available in the near future; all the features of this context are fully available in the Data Import / Export context, that you are kindly invited to use.

The mechanical analysis context remains available in advanced mode. As a consequence, from now on, the technical support for the mechanical analysis context will no longer be performed and any discovered issue will not be fixed.

Material Manager FX-23476 In the Material Identification tool (accessible from Flux Supervisor), exponents a1, a2 and a3 of the Modified Bertotti model may now be manually adjusted with the help of sliders after the automatic optimization procedure. This feature provides the user with an additional degree of freedom to fine-tune the fitted Modified Bertotti model to his experimental data.
Physics FX-20041 Until the previous versions of the software, volume regions of type "coil conductor region" must have been assigned only to one connected group of volumes of the geometry. Now, version 2022.2 allows such regions to be be assigned to non-connected groups of volumes. When using the command "Orient wires of coil conductor region (completion/modify mode)", in case of a non-connected volume region of type "coil conductor region" with "Internal terminals", the software asks the user to select the faces on the input terminal and only one line defining the current direction of all the connected groups of volumes.
Physics FX-20928 The maximum number of points allowed in the description of certain material properties has been increased to 900. This new limit applies to the electromagnetic constitutive relations B-H (isotropic and anisotropic), D-E (isotropic) and J-E (isotropic) described by splines. It also affects the volumetric heat capacity and the thermal conductivity represented by tabulated functions of the temperature (RhoCp(T) and K(T), respectively).

Moreover, Flux now prompts the user with a clear error message if this new limit is not respected during the creation of a material. However, if the limit is largely trespassed while creating a material (either with a Python script or by pasting a huge table of values in the dialog box), Flux will instead throw an error saying that the resulting Python command is too large.

Physics FX-24592 In Flux 2022.2, the spatial quantity BrDemag is now post-processed as values at nodes instead of constant values per elements. A direct consequence is the improvement of the export of BrDemag-dependant quantities, like for example the demagnetization vector defined as "BrDemag*Br/Mod(Br)" which can be then reused in other simulations.

Indeed, the reutilization of this vector is useful to investigate how the performance of the modeled electromagnetic device are degraded by the magnet's demagnetization. Such evaluation can be performed by inserting the "BrDemag*Br/Mod(Br)" result in a new material with "Spatial linear magnet" B(H) property and by solving new simulation scenarios.

Physics FX-12150 Solved Flux projects containing materials with hysteretic behavior (e.g., Preisach and Jiles-Atherton models) or magnets considering demagnetization effects require significant disk space due to the management of the material's magnetization history during resolution. In Flux 2022.2, the magnetization history management has changed: redundant, unessential history data from the computation steps of a transient scenario is no longer stored. This improvement results in significantly smaller, more compact Transient Magnetic projects after resolution; as a consequence of this development, the command to partially delete the results of a scenario is no longer available for projects with hysteresis or magnet with demagnetisation.

Note that for a typical simulation of an electrical motor in a 2D Transient Magnetic application with 50,000 nodes and 201 time steps, the project size is reduced from 16 GB to 940 MB.

Physics FX-24129 The possibilities to export and import a list of element-wise constant values representing a spatial quantity are now available. These new features have been implemented in the context of the following commands and only for the .DEX Flux file format:

Menu "Parameter/Quantity" → "Export quantity" → "Export spatial quantity and formula": if this export is performed with the new option “On elements (element-wise constant value)”, the output file will contain a list of element barycenter coordinates and the corresponding mean values of the quantity (obtained by Gaussian integration in the element).

Menu "Parameter/Quantity" → "Import parameter and quantity" →"New (constant) tabulated spatial quantity by importation" or "Modify (constant) tabulated spatial quantity by importation": while importing data with these features and using the option “Element containing point of the file (element-wise constant value)", Flux will look for the elements containing the coordinates provided in the input file and assign their corresponding values to the spatial quantity as a constant value per element.

Physics FX-15476 New checks on the Physics of thermal projects are added to guide the users set the regions correctly and make sure it does not lead to infinite temperatures.
Postprocessing FX-24506 In Flux, it is now possible to perform certain predefined mathematical operations on data while exporting it to a table. The evaluation period required for these operations is given by the variation of a scenario parameter selected during this export, such as the time or rotor angular position. This feature is now available for all applications, including Magneto-Statics.

To perform such an export, the user must select a scenario parameter and then choose the desired mathematical operation (RMS value, mean value, min, max, among others) that will be applied to the exported values in the interval corresponding to the parameter.

Solving FX-23788 A new strategy of convergence for the Steady State AC Magnetic coupled with Thermal Transient has been implemented, this strategy allows to reach convergence when there are critical points to reach in the finite elements problem (power sources are setted to zero during the scenario with Valid() functions for example).

The strategy is the following one: when a step does not converge, Flux does another try while initializing the state variables to 0.

Solving FX-24148 In order to ease the use of distributed linear solver such as MUMPS Distributed or PETSc, the creation of a hostfile through the Supervisor options is not required anymore. If a hostfile has been defined in the Supervisor options, it will be used, otherwise the selected distributed solver will solve on the local machine using as many cores as allowed for Flux.
Solving FX-23546 In order to provide an alternative to MUMPS direct solving for large 3D projects that need a lot of memory, a work on parallel iterative solver using PETSc library has been done. For linear and non linear 3D projects, one can now use PETSc solver and expect better computation time than with MUMPS solver, with less memory needed. The larger the project will be the better the difference in favor of PETSc.