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Updates and Latest Enhancements
(April 6, 2010) Ater nearly half an year of development and beta testing, we have released AMPS 6.5 version. This latest release is aiming at speeding up the first time user acceptance, and to privide the existing users an intuitive, unified interface and new features so they can quickly perfrom the "what if" analysis with ease. The latest version fully takes advantage of the latest multi-core multi-CPU systems using an advanced load-balancing multi-thread design, and works well with the latest Windows 7/Vista. To obtain the latest update, please contact us or your local distributor. If you have a support maintenance agreement, please login to download the latest update. Below are some key update details.

Following are the update history of AMPS product:

AMPS 6.5 Release 04/06/10

1) A new unified interface has been implemented for AMpsolid and
Ampview.

2) A updated general hyperelastic material is now available for support
of general 2 to 9 parameter polynomial hyperelastic function.  The
coefficients can be fitted from the stress-strain curve using the
built-in curve fitting tool.

3) The Hyperelastic Foam Constitutive Behavior has been added. and the
Herelastic Rubber Constitutive Behavior replaces the previous Mooney
Rivlin.  This formulation supports the 2, 5 or 9 parameter versions of
the Mooney Rivlin model for hyperelastic rubber.

4) A new result summation tool has been added to support gneneral result
summation against time/step in " Result>Plot Selected Nodes".  This
option now includes a checkbox for Time/Step plots so that the selected
nodes are summed in the Time/Step plot.

5) Fix a element based face selection problem in boundary condition
geometry.  When it is un-selected from the current geometry set, the
highlight remain on rather than changing into regular mesh color.

6) Added a new damping control for contact/impact analysis for high
frequency contact control.
Material Sheet>Stress changes (version 6.0.2)

7) Hyperelastic Rubber Fitting.  A dialog has been added to allow the user
to obtain the Hyperelastic coefficients by fitting experimental data.
The experimental data should be an ASCII (readable by notepad) file of
stress and strain pairs separated by commas.

8) Solid View icon
The Model View (AMPSolid) and FEA View (AMPView) of a model are now
linked so that clicking the Solid View icon (in the FEA view) or the
FEA/Mesh View icon (in the Solid View) allow quick access to the other
view.  The camera position is preserved when changing programs using
these icons so that the screen displays the same orientation of the
model after the view is changed.

9) Middle Mouse Buttons for dynamic camera changes
Dragging the mouse with the middle mouse button down (on modern mice,
this corresponds to pressing the mouse wheel down like a button and
moving the mouse) cause the camera to orbit the model.  If the Shift key
is held down, the camera pans across the model.  If the Control key is
held down, the camera zooms in and out as the mouse dragged up and down.

10) Contour Type>Format
The "C-Style" format option was replaced by the "Generic" option on the
Format Selection display.  This prevents a program crash when the user
insists on entering garbage into the format field.  The Pre-Text and
Post-Text options have been added so the users can add units or other
text to the contour format.

11) Contour Type>Legend
The location and height of the contour can be changed.  If desired, the
new values can be saved as the defaults for the contour legend when
AMPView is started.

12) Solid View icon
The Solid View icon is used when AMPView is started from AMPSolid and
paired with that AMPSolid program.  In this case, users can easily
switch between programs by selecting the Solid View or the FEA View icon
at the left of the top toolbar.

13) Other Changes
For Explicit and Damage models, hidden elements are preserved (by
numbers only) when the load case changes.

AMPS 6.02 Updated 10/20/09

1) For Windows 7 and Windows Vista users, administrative privileges are
needed to write the configuration controls to the Windows root
directory.  Also, to switch the license manager to be USB based, you
need to right click on AMPSLicUSB.exe and select ‘Run as Administrator’
so that Windows 7 or Vista will record the change.

2) The latest update requires a new VC2005 runtime update.  It will be
automatically installed if installed from the installation process.  If
you only update the individual module (such as 64-bit installation),
please download the software update vcredist_x86.exe or vcredist_x64.exe
for the corresponding 32-bit or the 64-bit update.  You can find both
update from Microsoft's website, or from AMPS Tech's software update.

3) For damage analysis, AMPView now keeps hidden elements hidden during
step animation and when the step is changed.

4) The solver now correctly displays the number of threads used during
the solution stage, rather than display single thread tasks even though
it is fully utilizing the multi-core/multi-CPU.  It will also solve more
efficiently for linear elastic problems without going into unnecessary
solution iteration.

5) There is a new tetrahedron and triangular element formulation (b-bar
option).  This is a smoothed FEM element that will produce high
accuracy.  For this preliminary implementation, you should verify any
b-bar results by comparing them to the results without the b-bar option.

AMPS 6.0 Release 8/18/09

Boundary Conditions – No more separate indexes for Geometry, Time, Type,
Value:

Each Boundary Condition has Geometry, Type, Value and Time parts that
are only part of that boundary condition.  The Geometry, Type, Value or
Time associated with a Boundary Condition are only associated with that
one Boundary Condition.  To create a new condition (with default
values), select the geometry for the condition and then click New using
selected on the Condition page of the Condition Sheet.  This allows you
to chose the type from a dialog and opens the Value page for that type
so that the default values can be changed.  After changing the default
values, click Update on the value page to save the new values.

Expanded Time value options and Graphs of Time-Factor curve:

The Condition Sheet>Time page displays a graph of the time function for
the current system time.  Clicking Change Type brings up the Time
Dependency Entry dialog.  AMPS now supports Step and Sine option for
time dependency along with the Initial Value and Piecewise-Linear
options that were previously supported.

Boundary Conditions Symbols – defaults to fewer larger symbols:

The default for displaying Boundary Condition symbols now displays
symbols at up to 6 locations per boundary condition (max/min x, y and
z).  The larger symbols are easier to see for models with a fine mesh.
An option to Show on all nodes is available to display smaller (mesh
size dependent) symbols at each affected node or face.

Boundary Conditions Symbols – displayed by default, display icon:

The boundary condition symbols are now displayed when a model is opened.
The display of the BC symbols is now controlled by the Display BC
Symbols icon on the display toolbar.  When the Condition Sheet is open,
only BC Symbols for the current BC are displayed.  When the Condition
Sheet is closed, BC Symbols for all boundary conditions are displayed.

Conversion of old Dat and AMD files to 6.0 format:

The new .AMD file format is not compatible with previous AMPSol and
AMPView programs.  Old files (.dat and .amd) from these older programs
are converted to the new format when they are loaded into AMPView.
(Boundary condition sets are converted into the new Boundary Condition
format with unique Geometry, Type, Value and Time parts).  If you try to
analyze (File>Analyze Model) an AMD file that has not yet been saved in
the new format, you are given a chance to save the file before analysis
or cancel the analysis.

Disabling Boundary Conditions – two new ways:

The Condition Sheet>Condition page has a Disable Condition checkbox that
can be used to temporarily disable a boundary condition.  This is useful
if you want to run an analysis without one (or several) of the current
boundary conditions, but still want to keep the conditions in the file.

The Condition Sheet>Advanced page has an Apply BC only if Active Time
non-zero checkbox.  If this is checked, the boundary condition is active
when the active time factor is non-zero and not active then the active
time factor is zero.  The Change Active Time button allows the
Time-Active Time Factor curve to be independently specified for each
condition.  If the Apply BC only if Active Time non-zero is not checked,
the BC is active all the time.

View the direction of the largest principal stress at each node:

The new Results>Vector Display>Line Display of Largest Principal Stress
menu item can be used to display a line in the direction of the largest
principal stress at each node.  The length of the line is proportional
to the magnitude of the stress.  The color of the direction line
indicates the value of the stress.  If both compression and tension
occurs in a model, the red lines indicate maximum tension and the blue
lines indicate maximum compression.

Dynamic Frequency Analysis:

Dynamic Frequency Domain/High Freq Analysis is available on the
Model>System Control sheet.  For this mode of analysis, the time dialog
allows a phase to be specified for each boundary condition.  Applying
two perpendicular displacements of the same magnitude with a 90 degrees
phase difference applies a circular displacement to the model.  The
displacement animation of the Dynamic Frequency Analysis results
displays a full cycle of displacement including phase information.

Large deformation small rotation option

This newly added option allows in the UL formulation to neglect the
rigid body rotational matrix correction.  This correction is typically
small if the rotation between successive non-linear steps is small and
ignoring the correction slightly increases the computation speed.  On
some models with very nonlinear behavior or multiple solutions, turning
on Small Rotation Approximation will improve the numerical convergence
by slightly smoothing these near singularity calculations.

STEP translator has been added

In AMPSolid, the STEP import/export features are now active for exchanging
data from other CAD package.

Restart Analysis Feature

The restart analysis feature is now correctly restoring all previous
analysis step.  AMPView "restart analysis" checkbox now also record the
restart command properly.

AMPS 5.2 Updated 1/26/09

Boundary Conditions – Symbol Display

Symbols are displayed for the physics related (not General) boundary
conditions.  Users can specify whether or not None of the symbols are
displayed, the symbols are displayed for the Current condition or
symbols are displayed for All the conditions.  If symbols are displayed
for All conditions, the symbols remain on the model after the Condition
Sheet is closed.

Nodal Local Coordinate System Dialog

This dialog has been redesigned to provide clearer information to the
user.  The pull-down describes the type of coordinate system and the
sign of the vector components used to define the coordinate system.
Only the a,b,c definitions for the currently specified Local Coordinate
System are displayed.  Selection details for advanced users have been
moved to the bottom of the dialog.

Surface Pressure:

A refined pressure calculation is implemented to follow the curvature of
the element surface variation much better in higher-order elements.  The
updated method follows the element surface polynomial order, and use
higher order integration method accordingly.

AMPSolid:

Fix a problem when assembly parts are not touching each
other, and these parts were assigned to the same material attribute,
rather than the preferred separate material ID..

AMPS 5.1 Updated 10/10/08

1) For radiation view effect heat transfer analysis, for those faces that
are completely hidden from other faces, they are removed from the
radiation heat transfer calculation rather than radiating to the ambient
temperature.

2) A new equivalent strain item is now available as the run-time variable for
nonlinear dependency choice.

3) A new environment variable AMPS_MTHREAD_WAIT is now available to
change the default multithread thread pool timing.  On some multi-core
CPU, when the memory bus is shared and the each CPU core's access is not
as fast, the user can set the multithread wait timing (in milliseconds)
to allow a smoother computation.

AMPS 5.0 Update 07/01/08

Binary Output Files:

A Binary output files (.oub) is used instead of the ascii (.out, .eou)
files.  By selectively loading only the necessary part of the binary
file, AMPView exhibits a significant performance improvement when
loading the results from the processor.  Also, the binary files allow
models with significantly more output steps to be viewed in AMPView –
even on the 32 bit version of AMPView.

Damage and Explicit analysis now create a single model.oub file instead
of a model##.out file and model##.fe file for each time/step.

User Results:

Results>User Results>User defined result type and Results>User
Results>User Normal/Shear by direction have been significantly enhanced:
1) User results specifications are saved with the AMPView save command.
2) User results are available for Explicit, and Damage.
3) User results can be used when monitoring running analysis and are
available for new steps as soon as the new steps are available.
4) An improved User defined result type dialog uses pull-down to select
previous user results to display expression or to delete.

Read Latest Results:

Read Latest Result is active if a more recent version of the output file
is available.  This is useful when monitoring a multi-step problem.
Results can be updated as each additional step is available.

When the Read Latest Result button is pressed, the latest results are
loaded, the last time/step is displayed and default scaling (1 for
normal analysis, Automatic for modal results) is applied.

When an existing file with results is loaded, the Read Latest Results is
active.  This allows the user to quickly view the scaled latest step.

Results>Select Time/Step/Mode:

New shortcut buttons have been added to quickly go to the first, middle
or last step.

If scaling, contour, vectors and streamlines are active, they are
updated when the step changes or Step Animation is used.

Results Toolbar:

Next and Previous step/mode buttons have been added.  Now you can
quickly and easily view the next or previous step.
Scale toggle button has been added to quickly turn on or off the
displacement.

Streamline button is now a toggle button to turn streamlines on or off.
The Result>Streamline Options.. command can be used to change streamline
options.

New Step Animation:

The Step Animation Control now includes options to restrict the range of
the animation.  Full Range can be checked, or Start/End values can be
used.

When the play button (|>) is pressed, any pending changes on the dialog
are applied.

If Contour Display>Automatic is active then the contour range changes
between timesteps to display the minimum and maximum values.  This
allows users to use animation to check for the highest output values.
Users can select the timestep that displays the range they want and turn
off Contour Display>Automatic to use the same scale for all animation
steps.

When paused, the new step animation uses significantly less computer CPU
cycles than the previous Step Animation method.

File Step Animation:

File step animation can be used for any model.  Previously it was used
only for Damage or Explicit models.  For large models that are slow to
display, this option allows the animated frames to be save as .BMP files
along with a .ABMP file that contains timestep information.  The saved
.BMP files can be animated at a much faster frame rate than the original
large models.

Explicit and Damage models now default to normal step animation (instead
of File Step Animation).

File Step Animations can be created using the Create AVI button on the
normal Step Animation dialog or the Results>Animations>Step Animate to
File option.

Step Animation for Damage and Explicit Models:

Both Damage and Explicit now default to normal step animation instead of
File Step Animation.  For models that display rapidly, normal Step
Animation allows the user to use rotate, zoom and pause to stop the
animation at any time.  For any large model that display different steps
too slowly for the normal animation to be effective, the Create AVI
button on the Step Animation Control can be used to create a File Step
Animation (BMP files or an AVI file) that can be played back quickly.
The Results>Animations>Step Animate to File option can be used to
directly create a file animation.

Displacement Animation:

The Displacement (changing Scale) Animation has been rewritten to use
significantly less CPU cycles during animation and pause.  Also the >
(and <) options increase (or decrease) the scale until the maximum scale
is reached.  The labels for Half and Full Sine have been changed to
Positive Half and Full Cycle since a linear cycle is used and not a Sine
cycle.

Change Views (Iso, XY, XZ, YZ):

Unless Options>Enclose Changed view is set, changing the view does not
change the zoom.  This makes changing view similar to the rotate command
that doesn't change the zoom.  Similar to the rotate command, you may
have to use the drag command after the first view change to fully
specify the center of the model so that changing views leaves the
desired center unchanged.  This is also useful after a rotate command if
you want to re-align the model without changing the zoom.

Time/Step 0:

Multi-step models now include time/step zero which shows the initial
model with no displacement.  This allows step animations to start with
the initial step instead of the first displaced step.  It also allows
history plots of node values to display the initial value.

AMPS ASCII input extension is .AMD:

To reduce confusion caused by other software that uses files with the
.DAT extension, the AMPS ASCII input extension has been changed from
.DAT to .AMD.  The format has not been changed and users are free to
change the file extension of an existing .DAT extension to .AMD.  The
Files>Open menu shows both .DAT and .AMD files.  If a .DAT file is
selected, it is renamed to have a .AMD extension before being loaded by
AMPView.

Automatic Contact:

AMPSol now processes the second order elements in contact analysis with
a more smooth result.  Also, a more refined automatic contact stiffness
used in the penalty formulation is used so it will handles a much wider
variety of different contact problems before any user manual control is
needed.

AMPS 4.6 Update 01/14/08

1) Automatic update version checking.
This option allows the user to check if a more recent release of any of
his AMPS programs is available.  If updated programs are available and
the maintenance agreement allows the use of the programs, the user can
click a link to the AmpsTech download site.

2) Improved support for Explicit and support for Erosion/Damage models
Explicit and Erosion/Damage models allow the geometry to be changed
between time/steps (as elements erode away or are split/combined).
These models generate multiple output geometry and output files.  The
following commands are changed when the results of an Explicit or
Erosion/Damage model are viewed:

2-1) Results>Select Time/Step/Mode
The time/step pull-down displays the available output steps along with
the time.  The pull-down can be used to load any of the available output
steps.  Output steps for Explicit are no longer loaded using the
File>Open menu and selecting modelxxx.dat.

2-2) Results>Animation>Time/Step Animation
Because Explicit models can be very large (due to splitting) and updated
geometry needs to be loaded for each time/step, load times for explicit
time/steps can be long.  The Create File Animation dialog is used to
create a video (and an optional model.ABMP slideshow).  This allows the
animations of large models to be played back quickly.  A previously
created ABMP file with its associated BMP files can be played back using
the Results>Animation>View Saved ABMP command.  After starting AMPView
and before loading a model, the View>View ABMP Slideshow command can be
used to play back an existing slideshow.

3) Damage/Erosion analysis ability has been enhanced.  Three strain
damage models are available:  compressive, tensile, and plastic strain
failure criterion and they can be mixed for different usage.  Combining
automatic contact analysis and damage will allow a realistic
impact/crash analysis.

4) AMPSol solution time can now be further improved if memory resource
is available.  A typical one-million DOF model can be usually solve in
less than 5 to 10 minutes using a 2-gigabyte memory system, and will be
even faster if solved on a 64-bit machine.

5) Changed an definition when the aniso-stress-thermal property is used.
The thermal principal axes is now defined by the thermal based principal
axes, rather than sharing with the stress-based anisotropic axes.

AMPS 4.4 Update 10/25/07

1) New streamlines dynamic display function.  This streamline plotting
allows users to view the streamlines associated with a vector.  The
default vector components (velx, vely, and velz) are used unless the
user specifies custom vector components using the Results>Vector
Display>Vector Display by Components dialog or the Custom (User Defined)
option of the Streamline Options dialog.

2) A new fast automatic contact ability has been added.  We now support
body/face selection for contact definition, along with the traditional
contact surfaces or edges.  Furthermore, select the new "Any FE
Boundary" in the geometry selection will indicate all surfaces will
possibly in contact with others.  We also now support any meaningful
selection such as element, body, face, and the boundary of these objects
will be automatically defined as contact zone.

3) Enhanced multi-thread pool for better support of multi-core CPU.  For
stability, Microsoft has released a patch for better support of the
system threading resource, specifically for Intel CPU.  We strongly
recommend that you download Microsoft KB936357 patch to further speed up
the AMPS solution speed.

4) Update the kinematic hardening definition so when the kinematic
factor is set to one, the full kinematic hardening effect is enforced to
be consistent with most plasticity literature.

5) Added a new Nonlinear Property Multiplier Editor to read/write
nonlinear material dependency Library.  This is convenient for many
commonly used nonlinear material properties with dependency on property
such as temperature or stress.

6) Couple other enhancements and fixed known reported problems:
6a) A new user defined LHS boundary condition has been added
6b) AMPView zoom enclosing is now working properly even with corrupted
model.
6c) 3D line load position indicator now works properly (was treated as
2D point previously)
6d) Faster model loading for both AMPView and AMPSol.

AMPS 4.2 update 06/08/07

1) New dynamic cut-plane contouring and result integration inquiry
abilities to support convenient result review.

2) Many new updated AMPView menu designed for convenient menu control
and direct access to commonly used functions.  Many improvement for
better boundary condition review, update, and automatic unused condition
clean up.

3) Larger and faster meshing support in both AMPSolid and AMPView.  For
the 32-bit version, AMPS can easily handle three to five millions of
elements and nodes.

4) A new conservative least-squares incompressible algorithm has been
implemented for numerically accurate mass conservation, especially in
the low order elements.

5) Enhance the rotating frame centrifugal spinning analysis where the
center of rotational is now user adjustable.

6) Enhanced the IGES interface to geometry entity generated using the
updated trimmed surface.  These type of surfaces are usually generated
by software tools such as PTC ProEngineer.

AMPS 4.1 update 03/26/07

1) Added "Transformed copies" for more convenient multiple
copy/paste/transform operation.

2) All AMPS modules are now completely compatible with Windows Vista
systems, and will be installed using the latest Windows manifest
requirement and newest compiled html help system and tutorials.

3) Updated AMPView for better text visibility for element and node
dynamic inquiry.  Also, additional distance/size measuring tool has been
added for engineering convenience.

4) Added enhancement for wide-character Windows system (Chinese, Japanese,
etc) where the local file name contain these wide-character can now be
used in the AMPS processing.

5) Fixed an output file reporting in transient dynamic analysis
in which the acceleration term is not correctly reported.

6) Fixed a problem in AMPSolid where the input angle and the mouse right
button click-snapping conflict issue.

7) Fixed a problem when stitching a set of water-tight surfaces into a
solid body.

AMPS 4.0 Release 02/05/07

1) Unveil of Meta-Meshing in AMPSolid.  The innovative Meta-Meshing©
method for high quality meshing using a Meta-Element© building block
concept.  The Meta-Element building blocks can be copied, rotated,
joined, swept, or extruded to create the desired shape just like the
standard solid modeling parts in an assembly operation.  Meta-Elements
have 1-D, 2-D, or 3-D formats and can be used to create beam/rod,
surface, or solid mesh elements all in the same model.  Once the
Meta-Elements are created, it is easy to change mesh density.  This
change is automatically propagated to other Meta-Elements for mesh
consistency, and the final global mesh density can also be scaled up or
down if desired

2) AMPView now supports more than 2 millions elements for the 32-bit
version, and essentially no limit in the 64-bit version, except by the
system memory size.

3) Update of AMPS solid modeling kernel to be compatible with all
CAE/CAD product with an optional IGES I/O support.

4) A robust and fast tetra/hexa automatic meshing kernel update
supporting large model and fast processing.  Currently, the tetra/hexa
meshing can generate beyond 4 millions elements within minutes on a
32-bit platform using 4 gigabyte of memory.

5) Simplified several AMPSolid toolbars provides easier interface for
new users

6) An updated AMPSolid cursor control and status dialog with better
control and more clear description

7) Expanded tutorial now provide more detailed examples.  Additional
Meta-Meshing tutorial provide more hand-on tutorial.

8) Added FE group display option to allow hiding all elements except
selected for easier operation when large amount of parts involved.

9) Added new contouring feature for range/visibility contour options and
control.  A convenient option to allow contouring only on the selected
element with automatic range setting.

10) Added new angle measuring tool in AMPSolid for better model inquiry
and creation.

11) Installation bundle has been updated for Windows Vista Business and
Home installation.

12) For solid continuum, the sign convention for the pressure definition
in AMPS version 4.0 has been changed for consistency with the fluid
pressure term, i.e., positive for compressive behavior.  For details,
please refer to the AMPView online reference manual and the release
note.

AMPS 4.0 Beta Release 11/03/06

1) First beta testing of the AMPS 4.0 Meta-Meshing module.

2) Fixed a problem in automatic h-/p-adaptive restart analysis.

3) Fixed a bug in AMPSolid when non-regular Boolean is used for tetra
meshing

4) Fixed an error in the geometric edge group entity that has
duplicated element edges

AMPS 3.3 update 9/23/06

1) Both AMPView and AMPSol now use a new thread management to better
optimize the performance with multi-core/cpu abilities.

2) For fluid-structure interaction problem, a better pressure integral
calculation on the continuum side is used to speed up the solution
convergence.

AMPS 3.3 update 7/14/06

1) The ALE smoothing interpolation algorithm has been improved to provide a
better mesh quality.

2) An optional incompressible flow formulation has been implemented.
The new formulation ensure the mass conservation in the incompressible
flow using the newly presented method as presented at the WCCM VII
conference.

AMPS 3.3 update 5/01/06

1) The B-Bar formulation in AMPSol has been updated with a mean B-bar
control to improve the solution in a pure plastic flow state situation to
suppress spurious hourglass mode.

2) A minor update to the AMPView menu items in FILE sub-menu to better
represent the functionality. Also, the arc-length control has been updated
so it can now be applied to the RHS loading terms.

3) Fix an error in thermal/stress coupled problem in plane strain mode.
The confined 3rd direction strain should be zero, but was showing
the accumulated thermal strain.

4) Fix a shell element radiation view factor calculation source position
side error such that the view exchange side was always the front
side of the shell element.

AMPS 3.3 Release 3/10/06

1) A new AMPS Explicit module is released.  The newly added module is
specifically for general transient dynamic analysis with advanced
h-adaptive abilities.

2) The newly enhanced AMPView now checks for input consistency error to
guide the user from making mistakes.

3) Fixed a problem in Overset boundary condition where the electric DOF
is not properly constrained.

AMPS 3.2 Update 2/17/06

1) AMPView now has AVI movie creation ability along with couple advanced
result plotting/charting features.

2) New radiation view exchange to account for thermal energy exchange
based on view factor automatically calculated from radiating surfaces.

3) Fix a memory overflow problem when the default B-Bar element
integration method is used for pure fluid flow problem.

4) Update a minor tutorial page linking sequence and a minor AMPView
cutting plane display issue.

AMPS 3.2 Release 11/30/2005

1) AMPView now uses names rather than numeric index for all material and
boundary condition interface for ease of use.  The optional user naming
option for the material and boundary condition data for easy
identification.

2) The processor uses a more optimized multithread load sharing ability
to maximize the performance on multiple-CPU platforms.

3) The brick and quad elements now use a b-bar formulation with
hourglass mode control for best accuracy and stability performance.

4) Enhanced piezoelectric material to support transient analysis.

5) Fixed a bug in the principal stress output calculation in the case of
a pure uniaxial stress state.

AMPS Update 9/21/05

1) Couple enhancements in AMPView include
a) automatic animation speed control so the animation won't move fast
b) refined display for hidden element faces and edges control for better
viewing and examining of large model
c) automatic color shading based on material property
d) better cutting plane movement controls

2) New piezo-electric material model for general anisotropic material
support.

AMPS Update 8/29/05
1) AMPSolid (version 3.2) now allows removing of any solid face and
allows patching of a new face.  This feature is added to enhance the
ability to remove small features not necessary for finite element
analysis.

2) AMPSol now has an enhancement for solving problems using reduced
integration method since such numerical method sometimes will generate
numerically non-positive definitive equations and require pivoting.

3) Fix a bug when remeshing and fluid material are activated at the same
time.

4) Fix a Lorentz force error when the shell element is used.

AMPS Update 7/23/05
Fixed a problem in the license server so it is now backward
compatible with the older license issued without issuing additional warning.

AMPS Update 6/23/05
1) Add scaling ability to AMPSolid model parts.  Enhanced the solid face
modification function so it follows the local WCS coordinate system for
easy modification.

2) Revised the default viscoelastoplastic strain integration error
tolerance from 1e-15 to 1e-10.

3) Correct the nonlinear material dependency function when the
interpolation range is out of bound.  In the previous version, when the
dependent value for piece-wise linear data is out of the range, the
default extreme value is not set properly.

4) Correct an error in the sample USRAPP.DLL source code.  The effective
plastic strain component is not retrieved properly when the
user_plasticity function is used.

AMPS 3.0 Release 5/30/05

1) Add a new fast spare Lanczos eigen solver for modal,
stiffened modal, buckling, and in-situ buckling eigen analysis.  For
modal analysis, the new eigen module also allows the free-vibration
modes extraction.

2) Fix a initial thermal strain problem when the total Lagrangian
formulation is used in thermal-stress coupled solution

3) For AMPSol 2.5 version, the tie/constraint boundary condition,
although producing the correct results, failed to report a convergence
result.  This error was due to a new convergence criterion used in
AMPSol ver 2.5, and has been fixed in version 2.6 and above.

4) Fix a bug in automatic adaptive refinement when the direct solver is
used.  The error occurred when a mesh is refined in either h or p or
both, the AMPSol solver did not properly reset the system memory used.

5) Enhanced the arc-length load marching analysis, especially in the
quadratic root searching algorithm for a forward marching post-buckling
solution.

6) Enhanced the creep material model, mainly to allow temperature
dependent creep behavior.

7) Enhanced the contact solution convergence speed, either with or
without friction behavior.  The method is based on an accelerated
searching and relaxation method.

AMPS Update 5/11/05
This installation contains the latest pre-release version of AMPS
product.  Many new features have been added, including

1) A brand new AMPSolid graphic interface with many new geometry
surface/solid creation features, new menu design, more convenient GUI
feedback and better responsive controls.  These are designed for both
the new and experienced users.

2) A new unit/scaling control in AMPView

3) Updated USRAPP user supplied module for more customizable advanced
plasticity material models.

4) Faster and robust contact algorithm with better automatic stepping
controls.

AMPS update 3/20/05
Enhance the AMPView region/window selection so hidden element/nodes
won't be selected

AMPS update 1/20/05
Fix a bug in AMPSolid meshing.  The error happens when a meshing process
is done step by step for the advanced controls, and internal meshing
speed up cause a link-list memory to be reused, but not allocated.

AMPS update 12/31/04
AMPSolid
A new hash table sorting algorithm has been implemented in the mesh
export numbering so the mesh export speed is now proportional to the
mesh size.

AMPView
A more compact and faster algorithm is used in the adaptive refinement
(increase or decreasing P order, or h refinement).  The new algorithm
requires much less memory, and run much faster for larger problem.

AMPS update 12/21/04
AMPSolid
1) Add new "Use Model History" so all solid modeling operation steps are
saved.  The history can be retrieved in the future session so the whole
operations can be replayed or un-done.
2) Fix couple geometry operations so all solid modeling/geometry
creation can be un-done properly.

AMPView
1) A better z-buffer depth calculation is implemented.  When a model has
a large mesh size difference, the previously version will not compute
the proper z-depth, and will cause certain invisible edge to show up. 2)
Fix a problem in "automatic zoom in" mode.  In certain cases, the
computed zoom in normal vector will be near zero, and cause system
crash.

AMPS update 12/13/04
AMPSol
Fix an error in transient electro analysis when rod element is used.

AMPS update 12/06/04
AMPView
1) Fixed an error in the beam/rod element shear/moment contouring plot
feature.
2) Add a new feature in XY plot to allow plotting of nodal results
along a pre-defined probing line.  Also add new control for XY Plotting
size/grid/increment controls.

AMPSol
A thermal stress error has been corrected for the shell element.  When
the low-order shell (4-node/3node) was used for the thermal and stress
coupled analysis, in the elastic portion the thermal strain was
neglected.  This error was introduced in AMPSol version 1.76 to 2.1 when
the new low order shell was introduced.  The higher-order shells do not
have this problem.  Version 2.2b3 and above fixed the problem.

AMPS update 12/03/04
AMPView
A new feature was added to allow "block move" of the selected nodes (for
quick modification once model is created).  However, it interfered with
the "add node".  Bug was fixed.

AMPS update 12/02/04
AMPSolid
When using FlexMesh3D, if the 3d hex mesh already exist, remeshing it
without resetting it first will cause run time error.  Bug fixed.

AMPS Version 2.2 Release

1) AMPSolid has been updated with a new graphic layer for much optimized
performance.  Additional new features include transparency, cutting
plane functions.

2) AMPView will now load the result files faster and more responsive for
large model inquiry.  It also contains the new cutting plane and the
transparency options.

3) AMPSol PCGLSS solver has been updated with a faster iterative
"extreme" pre-conditioner.  The overall solution speed in also improved
for large model (> 500,000 equations), especially in the multiple-CPU
machines due to the update of multi-thread refinement

4) The nodal energy error norm calculation algorithm has been updated.
The energy error norm is now based on the maximum energy rather the local
energy so a better error distribution can be examined.

AMPS Version 2.1 6/14/04

The followings are the new features or enhancement in AMPS version 2.1:

1) The printing and the print-preview abilities of the AMPView module
has been improved.  In the past, the contour legend box was not
positioned correct, and it has been fixed.

2) In AMPView, the shell element thickness thinning during the large
deformation is not displayed properly, and it has been fixed.

3) The electro-mechanical Lorenz surface traction calculation is now
based on the Maxwell stress calculation to include the 3-d effect.

4) A solver error capture and recovery method has been implemented.  The
processor will capture the solution divergence situation due to a
temporarily local error or instability, and continue the analysis by
either automatically reducing the time/step size or try different
solution method.  The automatic load/step marching sizing algorithm has
also been enhanced for an "intelligent step projection" automatic
controls to speed up nonlinear analysis automatic solution.

5) An enhanced Coulomb friction contact algorithm has been implemented
using the equivalent of an elastic perfect plastic formulation.  The new
algorithm usually will converge faster.  Also, the contact penetration
checking has been enhanced to accommodate penetration capture in large
contact step size.

6) In large deformation/rotation electrostatic or thermal analysis, the
electrical or thermal flux results were not properly displayed when the
Updated Lagrangian formulation is used.  This has been fixed.

7) A refined energy error analysis has been added to better predict
result for triangular and tetrahedron elements.

8) A new shell element has been added.  The new default SHELL4 element
now uses the reduced integration formulation with hourglass mode
controls and co-rotational formulation.

9) An Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) method has been implemented in
the AMPSol processor.  When the Eulerian fluid is coupled with an
Lagrangian continuum with the large deformation analysis active, the ALE
method will automatically adjust the Eulerian mesh by taking into
account of the Lagrangian deformation with automatic remeshing and ALE
mesh convection adjustment.

AMPS Version 2.01 6/10/04

1) A new anisotropic thermal conductive material with a general
anisotropic thermal expansion coefficient abilities is now available.

2) For AMPSolid and AMPView, copy screen bitmap to clipboard ability has
been enhanced.  Please see "File/Copy to Clip Board" command.

3) For AMPSolid, a fix is added to prevent error running on machines
with older or mixed Windows msvcrt.dll library.

For technical support, please contact support@ampstech.com or visit our
website at http://www.ampstech.com.