1. Shell-Solid connection – StressCheck can link shell elements to solid elements to enable models to be represented mostly by shell elements and retain the high resolution solid mesh surrounding areas of primary interest. This new feature is especially useful when ply-by-ply modeling of composites is required in certain regions of the solution domain to capture detail stress/strain distributions.

2. TLAP Traction – StressCheck can import and distribute point loads and moments (Total Load At a Point) from cut boundaries within a global shell model (NASTRAN, ABAQUS, etc) and apply them to the faces of StressCheck solid elements as smoothly distributed tractions to perform a local detail stress analysis.

3. TLAP Bearing – StressCheck can import and distribute point loads and moments from fastener locations within global shell model (NASTRAN, ABAQUS, etc) and apply them to holes in a StressCheck solid model as smoothly distributed bearing loads to perform a local detail stress analysis.

4. Incremental plasticity analysis – StressCheck has extended material nonlinear analyses to 3D, plane-strain and axis-symmetric models using incremental theory of plasticity with isotropic, kinematic, or mixed-mode hardening.

5. J-Integral Decomposition – StressCheck has implemented the J-Integral for both 2D and 3D models. This new extraction function enables the user to compute the energy release rate components required to perform damage tolerance analysis for laminated composite structure.  Learn more...


Enhancements:

1. Global-Local analysis – The existing capability has been enhanced with the addition of the shell-solid connection. Additionally, point loads/moments per unit length and point displacement/rotations can be applied to the edges of shell models to have more consistent kinematics between the global shell model and the StressCheck local detail model.

2. Windows Vista Enterprise support – StressCheck can now be properly installed and has been proven to run with expected stability and reliability on this 32-bit operating system. The floating license manager must still run on a Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP system.

3. Installation package – StressCheck’s installation package has been redesigned to be more robust and to comply with Windows XP and Vista deployment rules. You are no longer asked to reboot your system after installing or uninstalling StressCheck 8.0.

4. Third party components upgraded (HOOPS, Parasolid, MKL, MeshSim, PAM)

5. Solver enhancements – StressCheck’s solver algorithms have been improved to support models as large as 8M degrees of freedom.

6. 3D cutting planes - Improved performance of cutting plane visualization.

7. Hoops Viewer – StressCheck’s version of the Hoops 3D Viewer has improved functionality for visualization of models created by your StressCheck COM applications.

8. StressCheck stability and reliability continues to be improved in this release.


Discontinued Support for Features:

Windows 2000 – support for Windows 2000 has been discontinued in version 8.0.

Action/Object/Method Toolbars – these seldom-used toolbars will be removed from StressCheck in version 9.0. This is a simplification of the user interface only and does not reduce product functionality.