May 15, 2015
BETA CAE Systems S.A.
announces the release of
ANSA & META v15.3.0
About this release
BETA CAE System S.A. announces the release of v15.3.0 of ANSA / META pre- and post- processing suite.
New features have been added and corrections have been implemented for identified issues.
The most important additions and fixes are listed below:
Contents
Understanding the Software Release Schedule
New features and known issues resolved in ANSA
New features and known issues resolved in META
Compatibility and Supported Platforms
Documentation Updates
Download
Understanding the Software Release Schedule
The plan
We are committed in delivering improved and enhanced software releases, the soonest possible, in order to meet the requirement of our customers for the continuous improvement of their experience and work. Therefore, we are working in releasing new software versions with code corrections, new software features and enhancements, in regular, frequent intervals.
- A major software version is released every year.
- First point releases, such as v15.1.0, v15.2.0, v15.3.0 and so on, with code corrections but also with additional software features and enhancements are released every three months.
- Second point releases, such as v15.2.1, v15.2.2, v15.2.3 mainly with code corrections only upon their parent first point release, are scheduled on a monthly basis.
Each software release is accompanied by a detailed description of the introduced corrections and/or additions so that our customers can decide whether it is critical to implement this release in their environment.
This release
This release of v15.3.0 implements enhancements and code corrections on the v15.2.x branch.

New features and known issues resolved in ANSA
New features in ANSA
Translators
Support of new CT libraries for CATIA.
Connections & Assembly
Enhancements made in the Connection Manager interface.
Enhancements made in connections representations.
Shell Mesh
Perimeters start/end points and vectors information make capable the nodal spacing through scripting.
Known issues resolved in ANSA
Connections & Assembly:
The "Step Length" option would not be respected by EDGE-WELD-SHELL.
The nodes of the RBE3 elements were not pasted on pentahedral elements.
Shell Mesh
Fill>Gaps: Performance improvement for cases with big number of identified gaps.
Volume mesh
Layers: Performance improvements in layers generation for cases where side macroareas consisted on multiple faces.
The script function VolumesOffset would not consider the option to start from the middle surface.
DECKs
M00 file formats would occasionally read incorrectly the tree format and the Module Ids.
Non-visible entities would participate in flanges detection.
Reading Special Numbering rules would not be displayed when the option "Filter by source with expression" was used.
Abaqus:
Occasionally the *DAMAGE INITIATION options were not read through the MAT DB.
PAM-CRASH:
The Dependency check would wrongly report the NCOG node after conversion of OTMCO to PAM RBODY.
ANSYS:
Applying Pre-tension through GEB_BC would occasionally lead to unexpected termination.
Morphing
The issue with the misleading color of Frozen Control Points has been resolved.
Create>Bead: A missing check for the Radius fields would occasionally prevent optimal mesh.
For more details about the new software features, enhancements and corrections please, refer to the Release Notes document.

New features and known issues resolved in META
New features in META
Supported interfaces
Support of ANSYS elements SOLID87 and SOLID90.
Support of THESEUS-FE results RP02 and YPREC.
User Field Functions
Applicable to CFD analyses, new element result "cellheight" assigns to the wall parts, as scalar function, the height of the first cell of the fluid.
Known issues resolved in META
Supported interfaces
Incorrect calculation of centroid values for certain ANSYS TRIA6 elements.
Incorrect reading of the LS-Dyna *ELEMENT_SHELL_THICKNESS_OFFSET keyword.
Incorrect reading of certain ANSA Parts from ANSA comments that contained LAMINATE information.
General
Stress Linearization results were not calculated for newly added paths.
For RADIOSS T0x files it was not possible to plot graphs of follow nodes if the nodes belonged to different time history ids.
NVH Calculators
In the FRF Assembly tool the transfer functions plot would be empty if the option Sum x,y,z Transfer Paths was enabled.
In the Modal Response tool, when reading loadcases from Nastran files, the local coordinate systems of excitation nodes were not referenced.
For more details about the new software features, enhancements and corrections please, refer to the Release Notes document.

Compatibility and Supported Platforms
ANSA files saved by all the first and second point releases of a major version are compatible to each other. New major versions can read files saved by previous ones but not vice versa.
The .metadb files saved with META version 15.3.0 are compatible and can be opened by earlier versions of META.
Support for 32-bit platform has been discontinued for all operating systems.

Documentation Updates
Updated
ANSA User's Guide
New tutorials
- ANSA: Hexablock Structural
Updated tutorials
- ANSA: Morphing Basic
- Optimization with ANSA & META
Download
Where to download from
Customers who are served directly by BETA CAE Systems, or its subsidiaries, may download the new software,
examples and documentation from their account on our server. They can
access their account through the "user login" link at our web site
https://www.beta-cae.com
Contact us if you miss your account details. The [ Public ] link will
give you access to the public downloads area.
Customers who are served by a local business agent should contact the local support channel for software
distribution details.
What to download
All files required for the installation of this version reside in the folder named "BETA_CAE_Systems_v15.3.0" and are
dated as of May 15, 2015.
These files should replace any pre-releases or other files downloaded prior to that date.
The distribution of this version of our pre- and post-processing suite is packaged in one, single, unified installation file, that invokes the respective installer and guides the procedure for the installation of the required components.
For the installation of the software on each platform type, the.sh installer file residing in the folder with respective platform name, for Linux and MacOS or the respective .msi installer file for Windows, 64bit, have to be downloaded.
In addition to the above, optionally, the µETA Viewer is available to be downloaded for each supported platform.
The tutorials and the example files reside in the folder named "TUTORIALS". This folder includes the complete package of the tutorials and example files, and a package with only the updated ones.
The Abaqus libraries required for the post-processing of Abaqus .odb files are included in the installation package and can be optionally unpacked.
Earlier software releases are also available in the sub-directory called "old" or in a folder named after the product and version number.