A new deformable strut is a new option available in the Assembly Wizard for MacPherson Strut and Quadra-Link Suspension in the MDLLIB. In the deformable strut, beams model the strut rod and a point to deformable curve constraint models the strut Tube to strut rod joint. This allows the strut to bend under load and captures the camber change to due to lateral force common to strut suspensions.

Users with existing suspension or full vehicle models that wish to use the deformable strut can import the system definition, sysdef_deformable_strut, from:

$ALTAIR_HOME/hw/mdl/mdllib/Libs/Models/Frnt_strut/polybeam_strut.mdl

Tires and their interface with the road can be modeled in multiple ways. The Tyre Data Exchange (TYDEX) is an accepted standard for this purpose. Many commercially and openly available tire and road models are described in the TYDEX format. Any tire or road model that conforms to this format may now be used with MotionSolve.

The user written tire model connects to MotionSolve using the Altair User tire interface. The User tire interface accepts a tire model that is in the TYDEX format along with an accompanying user defined TYDEX road model. This is shown in the figure below.

MotionSolve now supports MF-TYRE/MF-SWIFT Version 6.2.0.2 on the Windows and Linux platforms. Notable new features include a motorcycle version of MF-SWIFT for high inclination angles and support for OpenCRG release 1.0.5.

Note: The licensing of MF-SWIFT has changed in version 6.2.0.2.  MF-SWIFT users must obtain a new license file and new license server software from TNO. MF-TYRE is not affected.

This release includes support for version 4.1 of the CDTire model. Within this release, you may optionally select to run CDTire version 3.0.3 with MotionSolve by setting the environment variable CDTIRE_VERSION to “303”. If the environment variable is not set, then CDTire Version 4.1 is used.

You are now able to run models that use CDTire on Linux. This release supports version 4.1 of the CDTire.

Note: A new license is needed to run CDTire v.4.1. CDTire version 303 is not supported on Linux.

With this release, support for version CDTire version 4.1 has been added. This version of CDTire supports static analyses in MotionSolve. This is supported on both, Windows and Linux platforms.

The Tire Test Rig is a system definition in MotionView that can be used to simulate an experimental test on a tire of one’s choice. This Test rig along with Tire model (specified as a property file) is loaded on to the system from the Assembly Wizard and the analysis from the Task Wizard.

The following types of analyses are supported:

For each test, a standard set of results, sufficient to allow you to understand the tire behavior are generated.

The Powertrain Test-rig is a system definition in MotionView that can be used to simulate an experimental test on a powertrain of one’s choice. This Test rig along with power-train model is loaded on to the system from the Assembly Wizard and the analysis of user’s choice can be loaded from Task Wizard. The test-rig is commonly used to understand the behavior of a set of parameters describing the powertrain and tune these so they behave as desired.

Two types of tests are supported currently.