What's New

View new features for AcuSolve 2023.1.

Altair AcuSolve 2023.1 Release Notes

Highlights

  • AcuSolve’s Battery Thermal capability is now faster and more user-friendly than ever. Some specific highlights include:
    • AcuSolve’s Battery Thermal ECM solver has improved convergence, speed, and accuracy.
    • Cell positive and negative tabs can now be defined as surfaces (faces) or volumes (bodies).
    • You can now enter either the total mass of the anode, cathode, electrolyte, and SEI within the cell or the volume-specific mass as related to the volume of the jellyroll.
    • Current distribution to cells connected in parallel is automatically determined from the electric potential solution in the busbar.
    • The Multi-Scale Multi-Dimensional solver is officially out of beta.

New Features

Bi-directional Darcy and Forchheimer coefficient specification
You can now characterize the resistance of flow through porous media in two orthogonal directions separately with the combination of bi-directional specifications of permeability and the Darcy and Forchheimer coefficients.

Enhancements

Topology Optimization Minimum Radius Specification
Controlling the minimum width of a flow path created with topology optimization is as easy as setting the min_filter_radius parameter. With this parameter the optimizer will filter out all flow path options below the specified threshold thereby reducing the creation of small narrow passages as these can be challenging for certain manufacturing processes.
General Usability Enhancements
A new option to the AcuRun command, -toprobe, will signal AcuSolve to create output data for 2D plotting at the end of a successfully terminated run. This option creates the directory PROBE.DIR, containing all files necessary for plotting, and allows for easy access to and lightweight transfer of data whether plotting data on a remote server or bringing data down to a local machine.
New SimLab-based Tutorial
One (1) new tutorial is available for the SimLab CFD user interface. The new tutorial is:
  • ACU-T 5201/ SL 2331: Coupled Simulation of a Check Valve using AcuSolve and MotionSolve
Training Manual Additions
The following 3 topics have been added to the training manual:
  • AcuSolve-EDEM coupling governing equations, drag/lift/torque models and data exchange process
  • AcuSolve wall boundary conditions
  • Information about AcuSolve run time statistics in the .log file

Resolved Issues

  • Two issues with the RESTART command have been corrected. One issue with the solver finding the proper data when restarting from a problem in a different directory and one related to the proper restart of battery ECM simulations.
  • The output of mean radiant temperature has been corrected for enclosure (S2S) radiation and participating media radiation modeling.
  • An issue with using periodic boundary conditions with multiphase, including AcuSolve/EDEM coupling, has been corrected.
  • The relationship between the wall boundary condition roughness and atmospheric roughness has been included in the tutorial ACU-T: 2300 Atmospheric Boundary Layer Problem – Flow over Building.
  • Additional information has been added to tutorial ACU-T: 6105 Single Particle Sedimentation, to better explain the process of defining the orientation matrix of the particle.
  • Items that are obsolete have been removed from the Quick Command Reference.

Altair AcuSolve 2023 Release Notes

Highlights

  • Battery Thermal Runaway and Propagation
  • Battery Pack Modeling

New Features

Battery Thermal Runaway and Propagation
Safety is the primary concern when it comes to battery systems and battery system design. Including the action of thermal runaway and the propagation to other cells and modules in a pack is a necessary component to ensuring safe products are being designed and manufactured. AcuSolve 2023 includes the ability to model thermal runaway within battery cells as well as any propagation of this thermal event.
Battery Pack Modeling
AcuSolve 2023 extends support of single battery modules to multiple modules allowing for simulation of a full battery pack. Modules are now identified by a unique ID and numbering follows the M#S#P# format. The same electrical inputs of current, power, c-rate, and standard charging profiles are available at the battery pack level as is available at the module level.

Enhancements

Floating Monitor Surface
You now have the option of including floating surfaces from which to write output data. This extra feature all but eliminates the need to build your mesh around the surfaces you need for output. Changes to the location of the floating monitor surfaces only require moving the object in the GUI and re-exporting the input files. No more remeshing required.
Multiple Fluids with Topology Optimization
Finding the optimum flow path for multiple fluids is now possible with topology optimization. With a sequential analysis approach each subsequent fluid path can be determined within the same design space while routing around previously defined flow paths. Minimum material thickness between any two flow paths can also be specified prior to running an optimization.
AcuSolve/EDEM UDF Enhancements
AcuSolve now has access to EDEM particles’ quaternion through the udfGetEDEMData() user-defined function (UDF) call allowing you to create custom lift, drag, and torque models based on this simplified representation of their orientation in 3D space.
Classic HyperMesh CFD-based Tutorials
All tutorials based on the Classic HyperMesh interface have been removed from the help documentation.
New HyperMesh CFD-based Tutorials
One (1) new tutorial is available for the HyperMesh CFD user interface. The new tutorial is:
  • ACU-T: 6108: AcuSolve – EDEM Bidirectional Coupling with User-Defined Drag Model
New SimLab-based Tutorials
Six (6) new tutorials are available in the SimLab CFD user interface. The new tutorials are:
  • ACU-T: 2500/SL 2040: Floating Surface Monitor
  • ACU-T: 3510/SL 2171: Battery Thermo-Electric: 2S2P Module
  • ACU-T: 3511/SL 2172: Battery Thermo-Electric Pouch Cell
  • ACU-T: 3512/SL 2173: Battery Thermal Runaway
  • ACU-T: 6105/SL 2441: Single Particle Sedimentation – Effect of Lift and Torque
  • ACU-T: 6106/SL 2442: AcuSolve-EDEM Bidirectional Coupling with Mass Transfer

Resolved Issues

  • Additional information has been added to the documentation regarding solver convergence criteria and settings.
  • User-defined function (UDF) information for EDEM coupled simulations has been added to the User-Defined Function Manual.
  • The torque model for AcuSolve/EDEM coupling runs now allows UDF control.
  • An example has been added to the VISCOSITY_MODEL documentation to explain how to properly set Power Law parameters when rheometer data is available for shear thinning fluids.
  • Mass flux at outlet now only reports mass flux of Air field.
  • Issues with parent volume sets not being written to the .inp file are now more clearly reported in the .Log file.
  • An issue writing H3D and Ensight files from multiple runs has been corrected.
  • Turbulence inflow quantities are now automatically calculated for phasic inflows for the average velocity, flow rate and mass flux types.
  • The transition of smooth topology surfaces between the design and non-design volumes has been improved.
  • Restart behavior involving models with sliding mesh now exhibit a smooth transition of variable data between runs.
  • ACU-T:6102 has been updated for better performance and to add extra information about time step settings.
  • ACU-T:6104 has been updated with additional information of drag coefficient model categories and recommended time step settings.
  • The units for species flux have been updated in the documentation to correctly show.
  • AcuPrep help has been updated to include the npt and grannoslip options.
  • RESTART_OUTPUT now includes information about case_output_frequency in the Command Reference Manual.
  • Log file information about platform used has been corrected for Windows machines.
  • A scenario allowing XYZ rotation when all degrees of freedom were set to zero has been corrected.