User's Guide

Altair® MotionSolve® is a system level, multi-body solver that is based on the principles of mechanics. Given a multi-body system description, MotionSolve automatically formulates the equations of motion and numerically solves them. The results can then be plotted and animated to visualize the response of the system. Plotting is useful for examining detailed engineering calculations and animation is primarily used to visually evaluate the overall system behavior.

The modeling and simulation tools in MotionSolve enable you to create realistic, physics-based simulations of complex mechanical and mechatronic systems. You can evaluate the system behavior through virtual tests and validate it with experimental data. This usually provides the following benefits:

•	Reduced product development time and cost.

•	Improved quality.

•	Reduced design and manufacturing risk.

•	Accelerated product innovation.

excavator_arm

An excavator arm model as an example of a flexible multi-body system.

MotionSolve is completely integrated into the HyperWorks® software framework which allows it to share data with all HyperWorks applications.

	MotionView is a graphical pre-processor that enables you to create complex models that can be solved using MotionSolve.
	HyperGraph is a graphical post-processor that enables you to create 2-D plots from MotionSolve results and perform detailed engineering calculations on them.
	HyperGraph 3D is a graphical post-processor that enables you to create 3-D plots from MotionSolve results for visualizing system behavior.
	HyperView is a graphical post-processor that enables you to animate MotionSolve results and evaluate overall system behavior

	HyperStudy not only enables you to gain insight into your system model using Design of Experiments (DoE) techniques, but also optimizes your model to achieve the desired performance. You can also use stochastic analysis to assess the risk in your mechanism designs.
	OptiStruct, an FEA solver, lets you reduce detailed finite element models into computationally efficient flexbody representations using component mode synthesis (CMS) techniques. The flexbodies can then be used in MotionSolve to capture part compliances providing a significant accuracy improvement over rigid body models.
	HyperMesh is a graphical finite element pre-processor that enables you to create rigid and flexible multibody models and solve them with MotionSolve. HyperMesh also helps you prepare finite element models for flexbody body generation using OptiStruct. These flexbodies can then be used in MotionSolve models.

A brief description of how HyperWorks products can be used in conjuction with MotionSolve.

What Can You Do with MotionSolve and the HyperWorks Framework?

MotionSolve provides a comprehensive set of elements to help you model and simulate an almost infinite variety of mechanical and mechatronic systems. Some examples of modeling elements are rigid and flexible bodies, joints, such as revolute and universal, external forces, prescribed motions, sensors, and controllers. These elements can be combined to model systems such as vehicles, hard disk drives, aircrafts, satellites, and robots. These systems can be analyzed for various performance criteria, such as motion, mechanical advantage, power requirements, vibration, stability, loading, efforts, interference, penetration, stress distribution, durability, and controllability. Convenient access to such comprehensive system level information enables you to efficiently evaluate and rank different conceptual design candidates. You can then fine tune your designs using DoE and optimization and assess their robustness and associated risk using stochastic analysis.

Platforms

MotionSolve runs on the following platforms:

Platform	Bits	Minimum System Requirement
Linux	32-bit*	RedHat Enterprise Linux 3.0 or equivalent
	64-bit	RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.9 RedHat Enterprise Linux 6.2, SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2 or equivalent
	64-bit	SuSE Linux 9 or equivalent
Windows	32-bit*	Windows XP**/Vista/7
Windows	64-bit	Windows XP**/Vista/7 x64 edition Windows Server 2008 R2
Mac OS	64-bit	OS X 10.8

* Starting HyperWorks version 13.0 and above, the 32-bit platform is no longer supported.

** Starting HyperWorks version 13.0 and above, the Windows XP operating system is no longer supported.

For more information on platform support for HyperWorks, please see Platform Support.