Legacy knowledge articles

Framework Why the reported Can Length is not equal to the modelled length in GeniE

Refer to Page 84 in Framework UM, it emphasized that the can/stub segment must be defined with one FEM element. If assign a mesh property to these beams to divide the can segments into two or more FEM elements, this will lead to the incorrect can length is recognized by Framework.

Use PRINT CHORD-AND-BRACE can check the can length in Framework, the information will be listed as below.

3D-Beam (All) Problems with the model / database

If you are experiencing problems with your model/database, in some cases it is possible to do a clean-up by exporting it to an xml-format and then importing the xml-file again.

1. Use File – Export
2. Answer No to the question about Genie
3. Close 3D-Beam and open a new job
4. Use File - Import to open the model again

Sometimes the local axes are changed by this clean-up, so the model should be checked after this operation.

API LRFD Different utilisations in Framework and GeniE

There are two differences that can cause utilisation to be different in GeniE and Framework when performing punching check for joints:

• Both programs check the chord and aligned chord. However, when checking the aligned chord, Framework uses the A, Wmin and gamma of the chord. In GeniE the values of the aligned chord are used.
• When the contribution from the axial load in the brace is higher than 1, differences might occur due to a simplification in Framework calculation (see attached file). Please see the attached document.

Application Version Manager : How to use the Application Version Manager?

The new Application Version Manager in Sesam 2011 keeps track of installed installed Sesam programs. It detects and sets the latest version to default.

The user can set other versions to default if the Auto update is disabled. To do this, simply disable Auto update, then select the version to be default and click Set as default.

If Auto update is enabled again, the manual overrides are lost.

GeniE and HydroD use the AVM to find applications being started from these programs. If both 32 and 64 bit versions of an application are installed, the 64 bit version is preferred.

For Sesam Explorer, the list of applications is created at the time of installing Sesam Explorer.

On Windows 7, if new application versions are installed later, Sesam Explorer should be reinstalled (repair) to update the list of applications, or the configuration file  <SesamExplorerInstallationFolder>\config\Sesam.config can be updated manually.

On Windows XP and Vista the list of applications in <SesamExplorerInstallationFolder>\config\Sesam.config must be updated manually. An updated template is found in the \Utilities folder under the root folder of the DVD, named sesam32.config for the 32bit platform and sesam64.config for the 64 bit platform.

The file must be copied into <SesamExplorerInstallationFolder>\config? and renamed to Sesam.config. This will probably require administrative privileges on your computer.

BPOPT (5.8-04): Does a user manual exist for BPOPT?

Introduction No user manual exists for Bpopt (Band and Profile Optimiser). Bpopt is considered to be an obsolete program, meaning that we are not planning any further development on it. However, some information regarding Bpopt that may be useful to users that are using Bpopt, or considering to use it, can be found below. Application For direct analysis using the SOLM card (Multifront solver), the optimization using Bpopt is not necessary (and can even make matters worse). For superelement analysis it can still be relevant, but we are working on other tools that will avoid this process for jackets as well. We will therefore not spend more time on new efforts regarding Bpopt, for which my apologies.  Further information Further information on the use of Bpopt can be found in the Sestra user manual section 3.1.4 and the Presel user manual section 3.10. Both manuals can be downloaded on the Content section of the Customer Portal.

Calculation of loads in Wajac depending on LOAD parameter on SEAOPT command for deterministic load calculation, program versions 6.6-07 to 7.0-01

The calculation of loads from marine growth has been improved and the LOAD parameter has been extended from version 6.6-07 via versions 6.7-09, 6.8-08 and 6.9-05 to 7.0-01. Refer to the attached documentation for updates on each release. Please see the attached document .

Can Wajac print Summary of Minimum Base Shear and Minimum Overturning Moment, in addition to max value?

Question:  Can Wajac print Summary of Minimum Base Shear and Minimum Overturning Moment, in addition to max value? Answer: By default, summary of maximum base shear and overturning moment of all sea states will be printed in the Wajac listing file. But if the design load is defined as MinBaseShear, MinOMoment or MinBothLoads, then the summary of minimum base shear and minimum overturning moment will be printed in the listing file. It should be paid more attention to that the summary of minimum base shear and overturning moment  only relates to the sea states have been defined with Minimum .

Can’t start Xtract 6.0-01 due to missing or not supported license version

Can’t start Xtract 6.0-01, with either of the following error messages: ERROR: While checking out a license. License server system does not support this version of this feature. or Command disabled due to missing license feature even with Flexlm / License Manager version v11.17 installed. The issue is due to a wrong version date in Xtract 6.0-01 and may occur if the license expires before 2021.1231. An updated version will be released shortly.

chords and braces in Genie

When GeniE identifies chords and braces it assesses the following criteria in prioritized order: 1- Diameter of section 2- Beams with internal joints 3- Length of the beams 4- Names Cross section thickness is not taken into account. There was a change order for this in our development database so hopefully it will be corrected soon. In your case it is the length of the beams that becomes governing. The option you have to overrule it is the "Beams with internal joints". If you join the two beams that you want as cord to one beam the joint becomes an internal joint for that beam. The other two beams will have end joints. This way you can control which one to use as cord. There is one issue with this. An X joint should actually be modelled with two continuous beams. Then GeniE will know that these beams should be kept straight when you introduce gaps at the ends. It seems like you have accounted for this manually in your model by moving the X joint to make the beams straight. When using one joined and one split beam to control cord/brace you still have to align the beams manually. I hope you can use this workaround until GeniE accounts for the thickness in joint classification. Regards, for Det Norske Veritas AS John Martin Larsen Global Technical Support DNV Software

Combining results from different loading conditions in Stofat

As of today, there is no possibility to combine results from different runs inside Stofat (for instance 80% operation 20% transit). This issue has been adressed previously and is listed as a development task.

There are two general workarounds for the issue, and neither of them is particularly simple. The first way is to combine the loadfiles (L#.FEM) in a small utility program called Waloco before running Sestra. However, the wave data in the S#.FEM files also has to been considered, which may not be so straightforward. This may also be problematic since Stofat has some model size limitations, and you may very well end up splitting up the runs either way since the model becomes too big. The second way would be to write scripts (Excel VBA/Phyton or similar) to manually combine text output vtf files with fatigue results from the different runs. This is perhaps not so straightforward and most likely very time consuming and prone to errors.

Cutres: How is the result case numbering for wave loads done?

Load case numbering in Cutres can be odd when having many wave directions and wave periods, from a frequency domain analysis. Sestra will sort the cases on wave directions, based on the input in the S#.FEM file From the example in the attachment, using 2 directions and 8 periods: – LC 1 = Stillwater – LC 2 (= 2-0) = heading 1, wave period 1 – LC 3 (= 3-0) = heading 2, wave period 1 – LC 2-1 = heading 1, wave period 2 – LC 2-2 = heading 1, wave period 3 – … – LC 3-1 = heading 2, wave period 2 – LC 3-2 = heading 2, wave period 3 Please see the attached document .

Eigenvalue Analysis

When you have a superelement model and you move from static to dynamic (eigenvalue or forced response) analysis then the Master-Slave reduction technique is in effect used instead of the superelement technique which strictly speaking is for static analysis only.

When taking a superelement model created for static analysis into a dynamic analysis you have two options:

Master-Slave reduction technique Component Mode Synthesis technique

The Master-Slave reduction technique involves that:

All 1 st level superelements should be assembled into a 2 nd

level superelement rather than having more superelement levels (if such is the case in the static analysis). Additional supernodes must be defined for the 1 st level superelements. These additional supernodes should be spread out over the superelement, denser where high dynamic energy is expected (i.e. big mass or big motion). For these additional supernodes only the 3 translational d.o.f.s need be defined as super as the rotations don’t contribute much to the dynamic energy. Select stiff points (major and some minor joints?) as additional supernodes and not points along beams.

A disadvantage with the Master-Slave reduction technique is that you have to change the 1 st level superelements.

The Component Mode Synthesis technique involves that eigenvalue analyses are performed for each 1 st

level superelement and a selected number of mode shapes for each superelement contribute as generalized d.o.f.s to the dynamic analysis. A disadvantage with this technique is that the mode shapes in general represent axial motion in inadequately (the mode shapes are predominantly transverse motion). This means that axial forces are poorly described which is bad for fatigue analysis and also earthquake analysis.

Ensure GeniE generates correct Sestra input file

This is applicable when a user can’t use the “Automatic generation of input files” due to some of the cards not  being supported via GeniE GUI or analysis type not supported directly in GeniE. Users can uncheck “Automatic generation of input files” at any Edit Analysis dialog box (i.e. Linear Analysis). To ensure that all input cards required from GUI are updated in sestra.inp file when clicking “Generate input files”, the user needs to follow the below steps:

1. select the required solver (or any other input)
2. click "Apply"
3. click "Generate Input files"
4. click "OK" to close the dialog box The generated input file may then be edited and will not be overwritten as long as “Automatic generation of input files” remains unchecked. The contents of sestra.inp is further described in the Sestra user manual.

GeniE How is the corrosion addition property used in wave load calculation

When a corrosion addition property is assigned to a pipe section beam, the generated FEM file and the wave load calculation will be affected by the combination of Scantling idealization setting in meshing rules and Accurate corrosion addition setting in compatibility rules.

Scantling idealization determines original or corroded dimension is used to FEM generation and wave load calculation.

Accurate corrosion addition determines the beam is corroded from outer surface or inner surface

Take a beam with pile section 2mx50mm as an example, 5mm constant corrosion addition is assigned to the beam.  The outer diameter Do, inner diameter Di in FEM file and outer diameter Do in wave load calculation are listed in the below table with different setting combination. The diameter of FEM element can be checked in T1.FEM file, MPRT card can be used to check the diameter used in Wajac.

Export GeniE model to CAD system

There is no direct way to export GeniE to DWG file. As we know, GeniE indeed can export to CAD system with .SAT format. It is just that Autodesk Inventor is stuck with ACIS v7, while we continuously update ACIS, but it is unfortunately not possible to write out an older version. Workaround:

In some tools, i.e. Solidworks, it is possible to downgrade the SAT file to an earlier version. Maybe it is possible to download some trial of Solidworks to try it out.

It is also possible to export from GeniE to PDMS. However, please note that this will not include the “beam section sizes and dimensions”. The only

information that is exported is the beam geometry, so the lines of the beam from node to node (without the actual beam section and thickness). If needed, manually add the actual beam section size and thickness in PDMS

The only file that should be exported to PDMS is the *.sdn file (in GeniE, use File > Export > CadCentre PDMS). There is possibility that the PDMS is not compatible with current GeniE version of SDNF export.

Exporting models to SACS

Although it is possible to import models from SACS into GeniE, it is unfortunately not possible to export a model from GeniE to be imported into SACS. No such converter from GeniE to SACS exists.

FEA (All Versions): Bulb profiles from Nauticus Hull to Sesam GeniE

Bulb profiles are not implemented in Sesam GeniE, and will be substituted by Angle profiles.

When extruding a 2-dimensional Section Scantlings model from Nauticus Hull to a 3-dimensional GeniE concept model, all Bulb profiles are automatically converted to Angle bars with approximately the same section properties, e.g. the section modulus should be as close as possible.

If the automated procedure doesn't work properly, e.g. the section properties are missing for some of the beams in the concept xml file, the following warning message is issued in GeniE:

Warning: XML-import problems While importing/exporting ………: No  prSection named Bulb….. exists -> DNV_structure_concept_protocol : model …………

Workaround : Users must find a substitute profile to use instead of the Bulb profiles. Then there are two options:

1. Replace the Bulbs with the substitute in Nauticus Hull – Section Scantlings.

OR 2. Keep the Bulbs in Section Scantlings. Attach the substitute profile to the beams that have no profile in GeniE.

See also FAQ no. 00004109 "How to convert small bulb profiles to angle profiles with similar properties".

FEA (All Versions): Nauticus is closing down when extruding a cross section

We have found that Nauticus Hull sometimes crashes (closes) when attempting to extrude a cross section with stiffeners on curved segments, e.g. in the bilge area.

A workaround in such cases is to do some testing by removing stiffeners from curved segments. If the extrude command then works ok with no errors or warnings, then keep this cross section and add the stiffeners back onto the model in Genie later on.

FEA (v18.15 and older): Why am I not able to change the application path in FEA_Genie project setup?

Question: The initial setup in Nauticus Hull FEA tool uses a GeniE path (GenieR.exe) that does not exist. When trying to change it to the correct path using the change-link on the right side in the window, it does not work.

Answer: This setup is no longer in use and should be removed to avoid the confusion. The correct path and GeniE version are to be set by using the "Application Version Manager" (AVM). Do as follows:

Close Nauticus Hull

Open the AVM, and set correct path and executable version of GeniE *

Open Nauticus Hull. The project setup in the Nauticus FEA-tool should now have been updated correspondingly

• AVM should be installed if not already present on your computer

Framework error message in wind fatigue analysis

Question What may make Framework issue the following message in a wind fatigue analysis?        Warning from GRES73 called by GWRSTL:        Reference outside pointer table        Record identifier: BELOAD1

What Framework does For a model containing a flare boom and a part of the deck, if non-zero air drag coefficients Cdy and Cdz are applied on flare boom beams and zero Cdy and Cdz are applied to deck beams, Wajac will only apply wind loads on beams with non-zero Cdy and Cdz. When the result file R1.SIN is imported into Framework, Framework will stop to read in loads when a beam without any wind loads is found, and the above message will be issued. However, the analysis will continue in the absence of other wind load cases and results will be reported. The calculated results are incorrect. Solution All FE elements included in a wind fatigue analysis must have non-zero wind loads applied on them. If wind loads on some elements are not desired, very small air drag coefficients, such as Cdy = 0.001 and Cdz = 0.001, can be applied to deck beams and flare boom support beams to make Framework read in wind loads correctly and generate the correct analysis results.

GeniE - Partially split plates warning

What does the  Partially split plates warning mean? Partially split plates warning intended to warn user that some elements are having improper geometry or mesh so user can check it. Partially split plates are not always a source of problem but GeniE warns about this because it is not uncommon that users wanted to have a beam go all the way through the plate but due to some modelling mistake the beam stops a few mm from the plate edge, thus the warning will help identify that issue. Also, having a partially split plate can create some improper mesh elements if the plate is not properly split at the end of the beam/feature edge. Increase the quality of mesh or modelling will solve this warning. If the analysis can run and plate is not your interest, partially split plate warning can be ignored to the certain extent (with user’s consent).

GeniE (6.6-08) Which shortcuts exist in GeniE?

In GeniE it is possible to use keyboard shortcuts. The following is an overview of the shortcuts available in GeniE.

File

Ctrl+N - New workspace

Ctrl+O - Open workspace

Ctrl+S - Save workspace

Edit

Ctrl+Z - Undo

Ctrl+Y - Redo

Ctrl+U - Set Undo mark

Ctrl+T - Copy (with transform)

Del - Delete

View

Alt+O – Options

Alt + B – Changes background color from default to white

Tools

Alt+M – Turn activity monitor on with only meshing activity set to active

Alt+D – Turn activity monitor on with current analysis set to active

Alt+P - Presentation (of results in Results views)

Alt+G - Beam result diagrams

Alt+C - Customize

Help

F1 - Help

Model viewing

F2 - Rotate (with right mouse button)

F3 - Zoom (with right mouse button)

F4 - Pan (with right mouse button)

Ctrl+Shift + RMB - Zoom rubber band (with right mouse button)

Shift + RMB – Zoom to the cursor

Ctrl+ RMB – Pan

model

Alt + RMB – Rotate model

Alt+Z - Fit to selection (new in GeniE V6.6-08)

X + RMB – Rotate model around axis that is currently in vertical position

C + RMB – Rotate camera

Z + RMB – Rotate camera

S + RMB – Set camera to see model in horizontal position

F5 - ISO view

F6 - View from X axis

F7 - View from Y axis

F8 - View from Z axis

F9 - Fit (zoom in/out to fit model in screen)

F10 - Spin model

Alt+S - Show selection only

Alt+Plus - Add selection (display together with other currently shown concepts)

Alt+Minus - Remove selection (hide concepts)

Alt+A - Show all

Alt+Q - Show complement (of currently shown concepts)

Modelling

F11 - Snap perpendicular/tangential/plane/eccentric (select option via Toolbar button)

ESC - cancel operations/go to selection mode

GENIE (7.2-02 from ALL): ERROR in input on T-file, data is missing for element

If Sestra 8.8-02 aborts with the following error message:

ERROR in input on T-file for superelement type 1 on level  1

Check of T-file (.FEM) revealed the following errors:
* Material data is missing for element 221137 (the reference number in GELREF1 is zero)                                                                                    
* Geometry data is missing for element 221137 (the reference number in GELREF1 is zero)                                                                                    
* Local coordinate system is not defined for element 221137 (the reference number in GELREF1 is zero) 

or Sestra 10 with the error message: Execution failed!

Error when fetching beam orientation vector for internal element number 50657. Unable to find the unit vector with transformation id 0. This is likely caused by some orhpaned and duplicate elements without properties. The orphaned elements come from a bug during import in older GeniE versions, but the issue was fixed in version 7.4-18 (and later). The error may occur in models created in older versions. If you encounter the error use the following script (paste to command line) to simply remove the elements. The script command is available since version 7.3-15.

Me_Analysis1 = MeshEditor(Analysis1);
Analysis1.step(1).DeleteLoads();
Me_Analysis1.RemoveOrphanElements();

GENIE (All version from 8.0) Plate Code Check for corrugated bulkhead

This knowledge article is to provide tutorial of plate code check (yield and buckling) for corrugated bulkhead. Please find attached tutorial document, and example model. GeniE journal file is also attached.

Please be noted that GeniE 8.4 version with dual assembly option has been used. If using old version, like GeniE 7.x version, there could be problem.

GENIE (ALL versions from 5.1-11): How to define your own correction shear forces and bending moments using the slicer in GeniE?

The procedure to create your own slicer including correction shear forces and end moments is described in the attachment. In brief the procedure consists of exporting  a ruleloads xml from Nauticus Hull as for a regular cargo hold analysis with rule loading, and then modifying the target values for correction shear forces and end moments in GeniE. Please see the attached document .

GENIE (ALL versions from 6.0-03) Graphics window goes blank

The Windows Update KB3205394 for Windows 7 64 bit systems has the side effect that if the GeniE window is maximized the graphics window goes blank when focus is changed to outside GeniE. The display goes back to normal when refreshing the display (move mouse over model, rotate model etc). The current workaround is to not maximize the GeniE window, but instead size the window manually (to almost fit the screen). We do not recommend uninstalling security updates.

GeniE (ALL versions from 7.0): How to resolve missing nodes for segmented piles?

Symptoms: The number of nodes/displacements reported by Splice is less than the number of soil layers reported by Splice when a pile with a segment change is used.

Cause: At segment changes, the default mesher in GeniE creates longer pile elements, to make sure that the same number of elements is generated. However, in case of a segment change, an additional node is required at the segment change. As a result, Splice receives less nodes than soil layers from GeniE, and hence reports less displacements than soil layers.

Solution: This issue was addressed in GeniE V7.0, but is only solved when using GeniE’s partial mesher. To solve the issue, use the following steps:

1. In the folder tree on the left-hand side of the GeniE window, right-click on your analysis and select Choose mesher > Use partial mesher to enable GeniE's partial mesher.
2. Next, edit the mesh activity settings by right-clicking on the meshing step in the folder tree or in the activity monitor. Make sure to set the mesher to ‘always regenerate mesh’.
3. Remesh and re-analyse the model. Additional nodes are now created along the pile. In particular, additional nodes are generated at the segment ends. This makes sure that each soil layer receives one node (or two in case of a segment change). As a result Splice will compute the displacements corresponding to these nodes.

GeniE (ALL versions from 7.3-15): Best practice for hull modelling in Sesam GeniE

See the  (also attached) for both overview and details of how to create typical hull models in GeniE. Note that especially for modelling of the skin of ship-shaped vessels new functionality has been added to GeniE since this document was written. See the Hull Design Tools -> Create Ship Hull from Transverse Polylines and similar functions.

Please see the attached document .

GeniE (All Versions from ALL): ACIS errors documentation

ACIS is the geometry modeller in GeniE. There may appear some warnings/errors from verification in GeniE (Tools> Structure> Verify). Some of these warnings/errors may be severe while some may not affect the mesh of the concept model so we recomend you to mesh the model after getting such warnings. If mesh is ok and you are allowed to do further modelling then ignore such warnings. If you are not able to proceed with further modelling then delete the members giving ACIS errors and mesh the model again. Some info about the ACIS errors/warnings are given on the spatial website. The users which are interested in finding more about these warnings/errors may visit the following link, http://doc.spatial.com/index.php/ACIS_Checker_-_ID_Macroshttp://doc.spatial.com/index.php/Types_of_Checks

GENIE (ALL versions from ALL): Changing default version of GeniE in Brix Explorer for Sesam

Go to folder Files\DNVS\Sesam\BRIXExplorer\config

Open sesam.config file in some editor. Check for the location of GeniE in the file. Change it to your desired GenIE version location and save the file. NOw Start Brix and default GeniE version will be picked from your desired location.

GENIE (ALL versions from ALL): Conical sections for non-tubulars

Description: After applying a non-tubular cone section, GeniE shows the section in the graphical user interface, but will not mesh the segment. Sestra will give an error when trying to analyse.

Explanation: Cone sections for beams are only working for tubular sections. As such, non-tubular variable sections will not get meshed and will subsequently give an error in Sestra.

Workaround: As a workaround, one can apply an average cross-section to the beam segment for which one wanted to have the cone. When GeniE meshes a tubular cone section it will transfer the cone into an equivalent diameter section as well, so in principle one could do the same straightaway in the modeller.

Another method is to model the model the conical segment using plates and connect these to the beams using support rigid links.

GENIE (ALL versions from ALL): How are design wave load cases ordered?

Symptoms:

GeniE will report the design load with the smallest phase angle first, i.e. there is no fixed order in the base shear and overturning moment.

Solution:

We acknowledge that this is inconvenient in creating load combinations, as well as in interpreting the results. Until the implementation for this has been changed, a workaround is to create each wave in GeniE twice. You can then specify to retrieve the overturning moment from one wave and the base shear from another wave. This will involve a bit more work in defining the wave load cases, but it will ensure that the load case numbers for overturning moment and base shear are fixed.

GENIE (ALL versions from ALL): How do I merge results and load cases from multiple analyses to perform a single code check?

Applies from version ALL to version ALL

This requires some work with both GeniE and Prepost. It basically involves that you merge your analysis results into a single analysis results file, after which a capacity manager is created for doing a code check of this new analysis. The procedure for this is outlined in the attached FAQ document. Please see the attached document.

GENIE (ALL versions from ALL): Why and how to scale down basic load cases in a pile-soil analysis?

Description: In GeniE you may need to scale down the basic load cases when performing a pile-soil analysis. Explanation: In a non-linear pile-soil analysis only results for the load combinations are normally of interest. In real life, there will always be multiple loads simultaneously acting on a piled structure, e.g. a jacket. For example, a wave load will never occur alone, but will always be accompanied by a gravity load and most likely even more loads. These different loads exist in the different load cases in GeniE, while the combined simultaneous loading is applied using load combinations. With this in mind, imagine only a wave load acting on the structure, so without any other loads acting on the jacket. This will most likely give a large stress in the piles, and the loading may even be such that a tensile stress results in some piles. These loads will give trouble in the convergence of the pile-soil analysis and in certain cases the basic load cases may cause the whole analysis to stop. Even more, these kinds of loads do not exist as such in reality, as also e.g. gravity will act on the structure together with the wave. The load combinations will usually give no convergence issues in the pile-soil analysis, while the separate load cases may do so. Hence, to circumvent this problem, the basic load cases can be scaled down, e.g. by a factor 100, to make sure the pile-soil analysis converges and the analysis does not stop with a convergence error. How to control it? You are able to change the behaviour  of scaling the load cases in GeniE  by setting the scaling factor. This is done using the command: GenieRules.Meshing.basicLCfactor = 0.01; 0.01 will scale down the basic load cases by a factor 100. A value of 1 will give no scaling of the basic load cases. Note that this may cause the issues mentioned above. If you want to check which value is active at the moment, you can use: print(GenieRules.Meshing.basicLCfactor);

GENIE (ALL versions from ALL): Why can my XML report not be opened in Excel?

Symptoms: When creating a report in GeniE and saving this as an ExcelXML, an error will show up in Excel when opening the report:

Problems came up in the following areas during load: Workbook Setting

Cause: This is caused by a limitation in Excel combined with the report section names used by GeniE. The section names from the report in GeniE, preceded by the load case name, are being used to give the worksheets in Excel a name. However, the worksheet names in Excel have a maximum length. When this maximum length is surpassed, the name is cut off. As a result, some sheets may get the same name, because some GeniE result sections start with the same words:

• Load Summary Conceptual
• Load Summary Applied
• Load Summary FEM Loads
• Load Summary FEM Reactions
• Load Summary FEM Differences
• Load Details - Conceptual
• Load Details - Applied

The effect of this is that Excel gives an error upon opening the XML.

Solution: A workaround is to only include one of the sections at a time that are starting with the same words. One can then e.g. manually change the sheet name and copy the sheets into the same Excel document.

Shortening the load case names, which are used to preceed the worksheet name in Excel, may also help, but will in most cases not completely solve the problem, as some of the section names used in GeniE are simply too long to be displayed as a worksheet name in Excel.

GeniE (All Versions to All): out of memory

Sometimes a memory error similar to this is displayed: CMofaMainApp: Exception caught os_err_out_of_virtual_memory - os_get_adress_space:VirtualAlloc(0x38000000, 201560064) failed Since GeniE employs a database called Objectstore, there is a limit on the maximum total size of the database. By default this limit is 128MB, but by defining an environment variable OS_PSE_AS_SIZE, the maximum size can be increased up to approximately 1GB (OS_PSE_AS_SIZE = 0x20000000). If you are using 64 bit computer then you may use 0x40000000 (applies to versions V5.1-11 and V5.2-04 and onwards. If this environment variable is defined too large, the application will not start. Also notice that the change above will make databases created prior to this change unreadable. To import such databases you must first set the variable back to the value it had when the database was created. Please see the attached screenshot (Env_var_1.JPG) on how to set this variable. Using 64 bit version of GeniE might solve such problems too. Please see the attached document.

Please see the attached document.

GeniE (ALL Versions to ALL): Exception caught: Database not supported

This error occurs when a workspace created in a newer version of GeniE is opened in an older version of GeniE.

To fix this problem, you can either install the older version of GeniE and open it or import the analysis by creating a new Workspace, then selecting File -> Read Command File.

Browse and select the *.js file of the old analysis and click Open. Alternatively, importing xml file is a better option.

GeniE (All Versions to ALL): How to change or delete a prescribed displacement?

Problem: A load case contains a prescribed displacement (for a support point with prescribed type of boundary condition). How to change or delete this part of the load case and not the whole load case? Solution: Go to Load Cases folder (or analysis activity if the load is stored there) and double-click the load case. Then double-click Explicit Loads and right-click the relevant prescribed displacement to open Properties to change or click Delete to delete.

GeniE (All Versions to ALL): Stresses in General Beam cross-section

Its not possible to display Beam stresses through Beam Results diagram and Report in GeniE. User can see stresses in General Cross-section using Xtract.

GeniE (All versions): Can't delete object from GeniE, script execution error.

If you get a script error about unnamed object when trying to delete an object from a GeniE workspace, try the following workaround:

Add all named objects to a named set and export a concept XML file using the option Export subset.

Then import the concept XML file into a new workspace.

GeniE (All versions): How to create a dynamic set?

Besides the 'Create set' option, GeniE gives you tools to create a 'dynamic set'.

The difference between a 'set' and a 'dynamic set' is that dynamic sets are continuously updated when creating new objects.

Today, the only option to create a ‘dynamic set’ is to use GeniE JScript language with the following commands.

The command used to create a dynamic set is:

DynamicSet(
AbstractLimit
);

Where
AbstractLimit
 is one of the following limit functions:

LimitAbovePlane(Plane3d)
– Add to the dynamic set all objects above specified Plane3d();

LimitAnd(AbstractLimit, AbstractLimit)
– Combine 2 limit functions;

LimitBelowPlane(Plane3d)
– Add to the set all objects below specified Plane3d

LimitBox(Point, Point)
– Add to the set all objects that are inside cube spread along main axis between specified points

LimitInOrAbovePlane(Plane3d())
  – Add to the set all objects that are above or exactly on the Plane3d();

LimitInOrBelowPlane(Plane3d())
  – Add to the set all objects that are below or exactly on the Plane3d();

LimitInPlane(Plane3d())
- Add to the set all objects that are exactly on the Plane3d();

LimitInSet(AbstractSet)
– Add to the dynamic set objects from another Set, doesn’t work when you want to add to dynamic set objects from another dynamic set.

LimitLine(Point, Point)
– Add to the dynamic set all objects that are exactly on the specified line

LimitLower(string, Variant)
– Add to the dynamic set all objects with specified property (as string) and value that is lower than specified, e.g. LimitLower("Height",0.3)

LimitLowerInclusive(string, Variant)
- Add to the dynamic set all objects with specified property (as string) and value that is lower or equal to specified, e.g. LimitLower("Height",0.3)

LimitNot(AbstractLimit)
– Exclude selected limit from dynamic set

LimitNumber(string, Variant, tlLimitNumber)
– Check if value of property is within limit

LimitOr(AbstractLimit, AbstractLimit)
– Create a dynamic set that is union of two or more existing dynamic sets.

LimitPlane(plane3d, LimitPlane)
– Add to the set all objects that are laying exactly on the specified plane3d

LimitString(string, string, bool)
– Add to the dynamic set all objects that contains specified name

LimitUppedInclusive
- Add to the dynamic set all objects with specified property (as string) and value that is higher or equal to specified, e.g. LimitLower("Height",0.3)

LimitUpper -
Add to the dynamic set all objects with specified property (as string) and value that is higher than specified, e.g. LimitLower("Height",0.3)

Examples of Dynamic sets:

//This example adds i.e. web frames to dynamic sets.

//Script will create frames from (FromFrame) to (ToFrame) in spacing of (FrameSpace).

//Script can be modified to be used along Y or Z axis as well.

    //***** Dynamic Sets *****//
    var FromFrame = -5;
    var ToFrame = 235;
    var Framespace = 0.8 m;
    var ActualIndex;
    var ActualFrameX;
    var FrameName;
    var FrameSetArray = Array();
    for (i = FromFrame; i < ToFrame + 1; i++)
    {
                    ActualIndex = i + Math.Abs(FromFrame);
                    ActualFrameX = i * Framespace;
                    FrameName = "FR" + i;
                    FrameSetArray[ActualIndex] = DynamicSet(LimitInPlane(XPlane3D(ActualFrameX)));
                    FrameSetArray[ActualIndex].name = FrameName;
    }

//This script converts all dynamic set in workspace into regular sets.

    for (var namedSetObject in ModelObjects)

    {
                    if( namedSetObject.supportsType(typeSet) )
                    {
                                    var arrayOfObjectsInSet = new Array();
                                    var name = namedSetObject.name;
                                    tempSet = Set();
                                  
                                    for (var objectInSet in namedSetObject)
                                    {
                                              arrayOfObjectsInSet.push(objectInSet);
                                              tempSet.add(objectToAdd);
                                    }

                                    Delete(namedSetObject); 
                                    tempSet.name = name;
                    }
    }

## GENIE (ALL Versions): Problems with graphic display such as wrong colors or slow response

If you are experiencing problems with the graphic display in GeniE you may try turning hardware acceleration on/off.

The switch for hardware acceleration is found in the GeniE menu:

View > Options... > General tab > Hardware acceleration.

Press the X icon to switch on/off

See also the FAQ: Performance problem on ATI MOBILITY RADEON X600

for adjusting the amount of hardware acceleration

GeniE (All versions): Rigid link copy rotate

Support rigid links should not be created by copy rotation operation, because then the dependent and independent nodes will get different coordinate system orientations. You can verify the local coordinate sytems by labelling them for the support rigid link (and any relevant support curves).

Unless the use is intended, this will give wrong results in analysis.

The differences between summed loads and reaction forces for the translational DOFs reported at the end of the Sestra.lis file should be small numbers typicall in the range 1.e-5 or less. If the independent and dependent point's coordinate systems are misaligned, the values are typically 1.e-1 or larger.

GENIE (V6.1-05 from ALL): How to import complex result cases into GeniE?

If complex result-cases have to be imported into GeniE, they have to be converted into a static result-case at a specific phase angle.

This can be done by scanning the result-cases in Xtract/Framework to find out the worst phase angle.

Then in Prepost, create a new result-case which will contain the complex result-case at that specific phase angle.

Now import the updated results file into GeniE and code check the complex result-case at the specified phase angle.

GeniE (V6.3-06 version and All Previous versions): rigid support link spring stiffness

If spring stiffness is defined for any DOF in a rigid support link, it will not work properly. The spring will not take any reaction force.

GeniE (Version 6.5-04): Boolean operation error in GeniE when executing JScript

When executing the following commands in GeniE:

val1 = 1;
val2 = 2;
val3 = 3;

print((val1 <= val2) && (val2 >= varl));
print((val1 <= val2) || (val2 >= val3));

GeniE will throw an exception: JS0001 Cannot convert (line: 1: type -> bool). The workaround is to use a later version of GeniE.

GeniE All versions Beam deflections are reported 0 at the beam ends

Deflections in GeniE are reported as the displacements relative to the beam or line ends, so the ends always have 0 deflection. Please see the attached document .

GeniE 6.4-08: How to solve 'HOOPS has reported graphics errors with dx9 startup' message?

If DirectX 9 isn't properly installed on your PC, you may receive the following message in GeniE:

HOOPS has reported graphics errors with dx9 startup If the GeniE graphics window is not functioning ...

• Please make sure DirectX is installed correctly The DirectX End-User Runtime can be installed using the Sesam Installer or from the Microsoft Website
• The graphics driver can be changed manually Open a workspace in GeniE and choose View->Options->General Tab->Select Graphics Device To toggle different graphics devices click the icon to the left of the "Select Graphics Device" text To solve this, please download and install DirectX 9 from Microsoft's website: After the download has finished, unzip the files to a folder on your hard drive. Double click the DXSetup.exe file to start the installation.  After you have installed DirectX 9, you can modify the Graphics device to use in GeniE by navigating to View|Options and select the General tab.

There, you will be able to select Graphics Device DirectX 9, OpenGL or OpenGL2 by clicking on the icon in front of "Select Graphics Device".

GeniE graphic performance via Remote Desktop Protocol

Microsoft Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) does not allow GPU rendering by default. That means the graphic superiority of host computer cannot be exploited during remote session. This can lead to reduced graphical performance when GeniE try to use DirectX or OpenGL GPU display drivers on the host computer. This issue can be easily corrected by modifying the group policy on the host computer to allow the use of GPU rendering during a Remote Desktop session. Your IT department might be able to help you to do this.

GeniE Modelling issue: red exclamation mark on beam

Question: what does the red exclamation mark mean?

Answer When the beam which has an offset depending on the intersection of two other beams. Then, for some reason, one of these two beams is deleted (e.g. it is joined with another or the user has delete it directly). The offset can not be defined anymore. For such issue, we will give an exclamation mark to remind the user.

So please check the questioned beam to check if there is abnormal offset. Below is an example.

This issue relates to Bug 16075.

GeniE MorisonConstant to Wajac

Question The defined MorisonConstant is assigned to beams. But it is not written into Wajac input file. Where does GeniE write it and how to check the applied Morison coefficients used in wave load calculations?

Answer In a GeniE workspace, after the defined MorisonConstant is assigned to beams, it is written on SPROHYDR card in the T1.FEM file during the analysis. The SPROHYDR card is as below.

SPROHYDR  1.50000000E+01  2.00000000E+00  6.00000000E+00  5.01000000E+02
          0.00000000E+00  5.02000000E+02  1.14999998E+00  5.03000000E+02
          1.14999998E+00  5.04000000E+02  0.00000000E+00  5.05000000E+02
          1.35000002E+00  5.06000000E+02  1.35000002E+00

Please refer to the document Input Interface Format - Finite Element Model and Load Data Types for detail explanations of this card. User can include the command MPRT into the Wajac input file to make Wajac print out the Morison Coefficients used in wave load calculations for the selected waves and the selected elements.

GeniE reports displacements of all FEM Nodes, even if a set has been selected

Question: GeniE reports displacements of all FEM Nodes, even if a set has been selected. Why? Answer: In GeniE, three types of results could be generated when printing FEM node displacements via save report.

1. If in the concept model without any frame joints. Then the displacement of all the FEM nodes will be printed no matter which set is selected.
2. If the concept model has frame joints, and then

• if the selected set does not include any joints, then no fem node displacement will be printed
• if some joints are included in the selected set, then only the fem nodes corresponding to these joints will be printed. For such case, the different selected set will generate different fem node displacement report.

GeniE SACS Converter soil layers

Question If a SACS PSI file contains more than one soil ID and the soil layers are different for soil curves with different soil ID, such as below, how does GeniE determine the soil layers and soil curves in the converted GeniE model?

PLGRUP  
PLGRUP PL1         152.40   3.5  21.0  8.00  33.5    28.5 
PLGRUP PL1         121.92   4.0  21.0  8.00  34.5    25.0 
PILE
PILE  101P201P PL1                                                  SOL1  
PILE  102P202P PL1                                                  SOL1  
PILE  111P211P PL2                                                  SOL2  
PILE  112P212P PL2                                                  SOL2  

Answer GeniE assigns soil curves with different ID to pile with different diameters. In a converted GeniE model, the soil layers are determined based on the data of soil layers with the first soil ID in the PSI file. The data of soil curves is linearly interpolated for each soil layer. The linearly interpolated soil curves for all pile diameters are placed at the bottom of each soil layer.

GeniE(ALL versions from 6.5-04): How to extract and print detailed curve information

The following commands can be used to extract and print detailed information about guiding geometry curves:

Command:

print(<Curve>.GetCurveInformation());

Expected output:

-> Curve Information:

Definition Interval:  [0,22.4768]
Is Closed:            0
Is Self-Intersecting: 0
Is Planar:            1
Is Line:              0
Is Polyline:          0
Is Rational:          0
Number of segments:   4
Degree:               3
Analytic Continuity:        C2
Geometric Continuity:       G2
Analytic Stable Continuity: C2

Command:

print(<Curve>.GeometryToString());

Expected output:

    -> BSplineCurve3D{Name[Curve1],Layer[],ControlPoints[Point(10.0000000000:0.0000000000:0.0000000000)

    Point(5.9968401846:0.4905205538:0.0000000000) Point(0.2034128748:1.2004085681:0.0000000000)
    Point(4.9830908462:4.9492725386:0.0000000000) Point(9.7726718238:9.0147146125:0.0000000000)
    Point(3.9542987567:8.1128962700:0.0000000000) Point(0.0000000000:7.5000000000:0.0000000000)],
    KnotVector[    0.0000000000    0.0000000000    0.0000000000    7.9056941504   11.4412280564   14.9767619623    22.4767619623   22.4767619623   22.4767619623]
    Degree[3] };

Command:

point1 = <Curve>.EvaluateAtParameter(...parameter...);

Expected output: This command will create a point specified by user name, at curve parameter specified by user.

Command:

Print(<Curve>.GetParameter(...point on the curve...));

How to solve Command will return curve parameter for the specified point on the curve.

Command:

point = <Curve>.EvaluateAtLocalParameter(... double in [0,1]...);

Expected output: Point on curve will be given when specifying position as parameter. Parameter value between 0 and 1.

Command:

print(<Curve>.GetLocalParameter(...point on the curve...));

Expected output: Command will return parameter from 0 to 1, from start of the curve to specified point on the curve.

Command:

point = <Curve>.EvaluateAtLengthFraction(... double in [0,1]...);

Expected output: Point on curve will be given when specifying position as parameter. Parameter value between 0 and 1.

Command:

vector = <Curve>.TangentVector(...point on the curve...);

Expected output: Command will return tangential vector at specified point on curve.

Command:

radius = <Curve>.CurvatureRadius(...point on the curve...);

Expected output: Command will return curvature radius at specified point on curve.

Command:

vector = <Curve>.CurvatureVector(...point on the curve...)

Expected output: Command will return curvature vector length at specified point on curve.

Command:

<Curve> = Curve.VectorCurvatureFunction(...no points...,...scale factor...);
scale factor - real numbers R
number of points - Natural positive numbers

Expected output: For given curve, the curvature function will be displayed.

GENIE/PLATEWORK/NAUTICUS HULL/PULS: What plate code checks are available and what are the differences between them?

Plate buckling analysis and code checks are available in both GeniE, Nauticus Hull, PULS and Platework as described herein.

Sesam GeniE is used for FE analysis of offshore structures (Sesam) and ships (Nauticus Hull).

Plate code checks according to the following ship rule sets are integrated in GeniE:

• DNV GL 1A ship and Offshore rules
• CSR BC&OT
• CSR Bulk
• CSR Tank

DNV GL 1A ship rules and CSR BC&OT (harmonized) came into force 2015/2016, replacing DNV 1A1, CSR Bulk and CSR Tank rules. DNV GL Offshore rules came into force January 2019. Tutorials for cargo hold analysis and code checks according to CSR BC&OT and DNV GL Offshore are available in the customer portal, search for cargo hold analysis. For tutorial according to DNV GL 1A ship rules rules, please contact software support.

PULS (Panel Ultimate Limit State) is a plate buckling analysis code used in CSR Tank and DNV-RP-C201 Part 2 (offshore). PULS integrated in GeniE can be used for offshore structures to check longitudinal structure according to DNV-RP-C201 Part 2 and some transverse structure according to DNV 1A1 ship class. This should be discussed with offshore class prior to usage. In this case some defaults in the CSR Tank plate code check in GeniE must be modified. More information is found in the Sesam training course SE-23 FPSO global strength and spectral fatigue analysis.

Furthermore, PULS is available in Nauticus Hull (ship structures) in three other ways:

• PULS Excel standalone spreadsheet, effective for parameter studies
• PULS AV (Advanced viewer) standalone program offering functionality for better understanding and optimization wrt buckling capacity of the plated structure
• PULS in classic Nauticus Hull up to Jan 2018 (v18.15) Section Scantlings for hull girder capacity in the ULS check according to Offshore Standard DNVGL-OS-C102 (Ch.2 Sec.4.3).

See also separate FAQ "The four variants of PULS" about how these variants are licensed and installed.

Platework is focused towards the offshore industry and supports rules and regulations from the following authorities: API, DNV and NPD, covering the following types of checks: Plate yield and buckling checks, stiffener yield and buckling checks, girder yield and buckling checks. The methodology in Platework is based on DNV-RP-C201 Part 1. The last update to the code (major revision) was made in 2004 and the user interface has not been updated since the mid-90’s.

Platework references DNV: DNV Recommended Practice C201, 2004. API: Bulletin on Design of Flat Plate Structures, API Bulletin 2V (BUL 2V), First Edition, May 1, 1987. Recommended Practice for Planning, Designing and Constructing Tension Leg Platforms, API Recommended Practice 2T (RP 2T), First Edition, April 1, 1987. NPD: Regulations for structural design of load-bearing structures intended for exploration of petroleum resources, Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, 1984. Guidelines for design of steel structures, Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, 1989.

GeniE/Wajac ( All Versions): Additional still water levels.

There is a limitation in Wajac and GeniE Code check that do not allow to perform code check analysis when currently checked load combination contains additional steel water level.

It is possible to generate results in genie for those additional steel water levels by adding dummy load cases, however it is not possible to generate codecheck, as codecheck will be performed only for initial water level. For additional water levels hydrostatic pressure will be equal to zero.

GENIE: Applying loads on a full circular beams in GeniE are doubled

The loads are doubled if the beams are either full circle or semi circle.

The proposed workaround is to have 4 beams around the circumference of the tube, and apply a load to each of them. This can be done by dividing the beams again, such that each covers a sector of 90 degrees. After division, the loads must again be applied to the newly created beams.

GeniE: Eigenvalue analysis including hydrodynamic added mass

When performing an eigenvalue analysis for a fixed offshore structure, it is important to take into account the hydrodynamic added mass. After setting up the hydrodynamic environment, the added mass is included as follows.

In the analysis, edit the Wave Load Analysis activity (through the folder tree or the activity monitor). In the top of the dialogue, change the option from ‘Load calculation’ to ‘Added mass and damping only’. This will ignore all possible wave loads in the analysis. On the Added mass and damping tab, check ‘Calculate added mass’ and ‘Include internal water’ (if desired). This will include the effects of added mass due to the marine growth and will not neglect the internal water in the flooded beams. After this, Wajac will compute the hydrodynamic added mass and Sestra will take this into account in the natural frequency analysis.

GeniE: Error – Mass matrix Max index and NDOF_rmFixedDofs do not match

If when running earthquake analysis in Genie, the below error is issued.

This error is related to the file M1.SIF generated in eigenvalue analysis.

For earthquake analysis, we need run eigenvalue analysis twice with different options. The sequence is mandatory.

• First run: check the option "Mass Matrix", run the analysis to generate M1.SIF.

If there are supernodes in the structure, then in this step, the user need modify the Sestra.inp file manually to remove the DRED card.

-Second run: uncheck the option "Mass Matrix", but check the option "Modal Mass Factors", run the analysis to generate R1.SIN and save the modal mass participation factors.

If this error is issued, there are two possibilities:

There is no M1.SIF generated in the first run There are supernodes in the structure, but DRED card is not removed manually in the first run

GENIE: How to solve "Unknown error in HOOPS display kernel during update" error?

If you receive an error message while using GeniE with the following message:

*Display update failed.*

*Unknown error in HOOPS display kernel
during update.*


*Display service unexpectedly crashed. Save workspace and restart application.*

Please report issue to DNV Software

Please follow the steps below to solve this issue:

Terminology

The following documentation refers to “graphics drivers” and “GeniE graphics drivers”.

The graphics driver is the system level software provided by your Graphics Card supplier (most likely Intel, NVIDIA or ATI) to interface between Windows and the GPU. This is supplied with your operating system or graphics card.

The GeniE graphics driver is the software used by GeniE to interface with the graphics driver defined above and is supplied with GeniE.

There are several “GeniE graphics drivers” provided. At the time of writing these are OpenGL, OpenGL2, DX9, DX11 and Auto. The default is Auto. This setting will attempt to choose the best GeniE graphics driver based on the hardware on your particular machine.

Step 1: Upgrade your graphics driver.

Check to see if there is a newer version of the graphics driver or drivers for your machine. Note that some laptops in particular may have more than one GPU from different vendors, typically Intel and NVIDIA or Intel and AMD.

The easiest way to upgrade a graphics driver is to start “Device Manager”, open the “Display Adapters” tab, right click on one of the available GPUs and select “Update Driver Software”. Select “Search Automatically for update driver software”.

If Windows finds a newer driver follow the instructions to install it and restart GeniE.

If you have more than one GPU listed in the “Display Adapters” setting then you can try updating all of them. On a hybrid laptop the default settings are normally that one GPU, typically from Intel, runs when the laptop is on battery and the higher performance GPU, typically from NVIDIA or AMD runs when the laptop is connected to an external power source and/or an external monitor. These settings can be over-ridden but that is machine specific.

In some cases Windows may not find a new driver but you may find a new driver on the website of your computer manufacturer or on the website of your GPU manufacturer. In some cases the latter will not install as the computer vendor has not approved it.

A note on GPU graphics drivers:

Graphics techniques used in most modern design systems such as GeniE are very complex as are the third party drivers that transfer the graphics commands from the CPU to the GPU. Bugs are relatively common and upgrading, or downgrading, driver versions is something every design professional is likely to have to do at some point. If there are no problems then don’t upgrade, but if serious problems are encountered then seeing if a newer version is available should always be the first step - unless of course the problems started after a driver version upgrade, in which case reverting to an older more-stable version would be recommended.

If a problem such as this is resolved by changing a driver version (Step 1) , by changing the GeniE Graphics Driver (Steps 2 and 3), or by disabling GPU hardware acceleration for your entire machine (Step 4) then it would be useful if you could report the GPU type and driver version to DNV GL Support. In some cases, if we can reproduce the issue, we may try to follow up with the GPU manufacturer to try to get the bug fixed.

Step 2: Try different GeniE Graphics Drivers

If Step 1 does not solve your issue, you can try changing the GeniE Graphics Driver. This can be done in View->Options->General->Select Graphics Device.

Assuming you are using the default “Auto” then try in turn DX11, DX9, OpenGL2 then OpenGL in turn.

Starting GeniE with command line options

It is necessary to load or create a new workspace in order to change this option. It is therefore possible the error dialog may prevent the setting from being changed. If so you can start GeniE with a command line option that specifies the desired graphics device.

Starting GeniE with command line options is described in Section 4 of Volume 1 of the GeniE documentation. On a command line type “GeniEr /?” to display a help dialog listing the available command line options. For example, to select “opengl” start GeniE with “GeniEr /graphicsdevice=opengl”. Note that this command line option only overrides the option currently set in the View Options dialog - it does not change it. Therefore if you find you can successfully start GeniE this way then you may wish to also change the Select Graphics Device option once you have a workspace loaded.

Step 3: Force GeniE to ignore GPU graphics

If none of the GeniE graphics drivers used in step 2 work then you can force GeniE to ignore the GPU and execute all graphics commands on the CPU. This means that GeniE will not access the third-party graphics driver installed on your machine.

This option is “Hardware Acceleration”, also in the View->Options->General tab. The corresponding command line option to turn off GPU based hardware acceleration is “/hardwareacceleration=off”.

For this setting we strongly recommend you choose the OpenGL driver e.g. “GeniEr /graphicsdevice=opengl /hardwareacceleration=off”.

Step 4:

Disable GPU acceleration on your entire machine:

Obviously this should only be a last step as it will affect the performance of other GPU hardware-accelerated applications as well as GeniE

• although it could quickly be used as a first check to see if the problem is GPU-related or elsewhere.

1. Choose Start > Control Panel.
2. Double click Personalization and select Display Settings.
3. Click Advanced Settings.
4. Click Change Settings on the Troubleshooting tab.
5. Move the Hardware Acceleration slider to None.
6. Click Apply and then click OK to accept the new setting and close the dialog box.
7. Click OK to close the Display Properties dialog box.
8. Restart Windows.

If, after trying all these steps, this error is still present or GeniE crashes then it is likely there is an issue elsewhere. In this case please send your model and data to DNV GL support as there may be a specific issue caused by the data you are using.

GeniE-How to export compartment inertia information to HydroD

There are two ways to export the compartment inertia information to HydroD for hydrodynamic analysis:

Mass Point: The compartment load can be represented as one mass point or several mass points in GeniE. The mass point will be simulated as mass element with the inertia information of each compartment.  Dummy Hydro Pressure Load Case: Use the compartment manager to identify compartments. The Compartment Manager automatically identifies all closed volumes (closed by plates and shells). The compartments can be defined by compartment manager. Checking Dummy Hydro Pressure creates not a real load case rather it is used in connection with Wet Surface and hydrodynamic pressure loads computed by HydroD.

The compartment load defined in the GeniE cannot be identified by the HydroD as mass model. The compartment load is represented as pressure load applied on the boundary of the compartment.

GeniE-Improving Compatibility When Reading Old JS files into Higher Version

Some model errors were happened when reading old format JS files to build GeniE workspace. These JS file may be generated by the customer self-develop tool. To avoid model error, it needs to set the compatibility option when reading JS file into GeniE. It is recommended to select V3.3-38 or older.

How to add a point load to a structural analysis with wave loads from HydroD/Wadam

If you add a load manually in GeniE, the important issue is to define this load in a load case not conflicting with the wave load cases created by HydroD/Wadam. If you have a Morison model included, and want to use the wave loads on the Morison model in the structural analysis, the only recommended option is to define the additional load in a load case following after all the resulting wave load cases. If you have for example 20 wave periods and 10 directions, and include the static load case from HydroD/Wadam, there will be 201 hydro load cases. The additional load case in GeniE should then be put into FEM load case no. 202, or higher. And, for sure, the load case name is not important; it is the FEM load case number that counts. This number may be adjusted by going into the properties of the load case (right-click). A picture from GeniE is attached If you do not have a Morison model, and you do not need to run fatigue (ok for ULS), you can specify in HydroD that the wave load cases shall start at e.g. no. 5 (WadamRun - Exe. Dir - Result Files - Load Transfer). That means that the first (static?) load case from Wadam will be no. 5, and you can define the additional load in load case 2-4. The wet surface definition in load case 1 is a dummy load, but should not be used for the additional load. Load cases for compartments, if any, should be available for the additional load.

It is of course important (as always) to check the sum of loads in sestra.lis after the structural analysis has been run. The additional load case should be seen separated from the wave load cases. Please see the attached document .

How to check firewall communication between Flexlm license server and client machine

If the Flexlm/FlexNet license service is running properly on the license server machine, and the client machine has the system environment variable correctly set, but the client still can't check out a license or connect to the license server, this is often due to firewall restrictions. The firewall can restrict communication for certain port numbers and applications (executables). The license service requires two-ways communication between client and server. Testing communication  One way to check that the client can reach the server is to telnet using a specified port number. Telnet is typically installed, but not enabled on Win7 and Win10 machines. To enable telnet go to Programs and Features -> Turn Windows features on or off -> Check Telnet Client (and Server if available). See also attached screendump .   From a cmd window one can try to telnet the server using relevant address name and specifying the port, for example: telnet servername 2002 telnet ip.ip.ip.ip 2002 (The port number 2002 used here is the default for Sesam and Nauticus licenses.) If an error message shows, the port is blocked. If a blank page saying Telnet at the top shows instead, that port is open. Define firewall exception rules Firewall exception rules have to cover the port numbers used by

both lmgrd and any vendor daemon like dnvslm, msc and marintek  (typically 2002 and one or more varying port numbers) OR the lmgrd.exe and dnvslm.exe vendor daemon (possibly also msc.exe and marintek.exe) executables. It is common to open up for the executables instead of the port numbers. To find the port numbers used by the vendor daemons, search the dnvs.log file looking for lines like: 17:34:16 (lmgrd) dnvslm using TCP-port 49161 The MSC and MARINTEK vendor daemons port numbers are reported in a similar way. Common problems

The path to the installation folder changed name from DNV GL to DNV going from FlexNet v11.17 to v11.18. The firewall exception rule must thus also be updated. The vendor daemons may use a different port number after restart. If this creates problem for the firewall exception rules, one can assign a static port number in the license file itself to the vendor daemons, ie:

SERVER myservername hostid 2002 VENDOR dnvslm port =yyyy

where yyyy is the port number used with the exception rule.

How to convert Sesam wave loads (L#.FEM) to Nastran bdf format?

Nastran does not handle complex numbers (e.g. wave loads) the way Sesam does, thus Sesam wave loads can’t be easily converted to and calculated in Nastran.

However, in a “snapshot” (point in time) of a wave from Wasim (on L-file format), the imaginary parts are all zero on both the BRIGAC and BEUSLO cards, and it is therefore possible to convert this information to equivalent Nastran format.

Nevertheless, there are some differences between the Sesam and Nastran implementation of relevant cards, so conversion is not straightforward. NastranToSesam (discontinued) and Sesam Converters only partially support such conversion.

Here are some details: 

Real rotational accelerations on Sesam BRIGAC cards are converted to Nastran RFORCE cards. (Supported, at least for global coordinate system.)

Real translational accelerations on Sesam BRIGAC cards need to be converted to Nastran ACCEL/GRAV cards. (Not supported.) 

For translational accelerations (real values, not imaginary) in Nastran, either the GRAV or ACCEL cards can be used, see the attached notes from the Nastran manual. Since BGRAV is applied to the whole model, it is natural to use GRAV since it also applies to the whole model.

Workaround:

The workaround is to use Sestra instead of Nastran for the structural analysis. Please see the attached document .

How to create .FEM file for hydrodynamic added mass analysis in Sestra

The implementation of added mass in Sestra requires the wet surface to be a single superelement consisting of three and four noded membrane elements with all nodes super (all translational dofs retained and all rotational dofs free) and coupled to structural nodes (in other superelement). Since GeniE currently can't define all nodes as super (retained), and Patran-Pre doesn't support membrane elements, the following procedure must be used to prepare the model with all membrane elements and all super nodes:

Export a T-FEM file of the wet surface from GeniE with membrane elements.

Export exactly the same model once more but with regular shell elements. Use a different name for the T-FEM file.

Read the model in #2 into Patran-Pre and define all nodes as restrained nodes (translational dofs = restrained, rotational dofs = free). Export T-FEM file with new name.

Check that element and node IDs are identical in the T-FEM files created in #2 and #3.

Copy the lines that contain the restrained nodes from the T-FEM file in #3 into T-FEM file #1

Change the value of NDOF on all BNBCD cards from 6.00000000E+00 to 3.00000000E+00 and remove the values for the rotational dofs, i.e. replace:

BNBCD 1.46100000E+03 6.00000000E+00 4.00000000E+00 4.00000000E+00
      4.00000000E+00 0.00000000E+00 0.00000000E+00 0.00000000E+00

with

BNBCD 1.46100000E+03 3.00000000E+00 4.00000000E+00 4.00000000E+00
      4.00000000E+00
using replace functionality in a text editor.

Use T-FEM #6 for added mass. Use T-FEM file created in #2 for structural strength.

How to export pictures from Framework, Profast, Stofat, Postresp?

Update November 2017: As Office has been more restrictive to Postscript due to a security vulnerability in EPS please try this workaround:

• select "Microsoft print to PDF" or a similar PDF printer driver as default printer on your computer
• inside Postresp set the Plot to Format Windows-printers
• When you Plot the image, this will be saved in a pdf file Please note that the file will not be properly saved until you close Postresp. It was possible to import CGM files directly into MS Office in the past. However, a Windows update rendered MS Office uncapable of recognizing this file format.

In order to export pictures from the software it is recommended to export as Postscript format and change the file extension from .ps to .eps.

Then it is possible to import into MS Office.

How to generate a PDF file for a plot from Framework, Profast, Stofat, Postresp

How to generate a PDF file for a plot from Framework, Profast, Stofat, Postresp? User can follow the below steps to create a PDF file for a Framework plot.

After a desired plot displayed on the screen, on Set tab select Plot and then choose Postscript . Click Apply or OK to save the selection. Click Plot , the file with the defined name, such as FrameworkActivity1.PS, is created in the analysis folder. Now exit Framework. In the analysis folder, double click the generated postscript file FrameworkActivity1 .PS to open Acrobat, click YES to generate the PDF file.

See also the for details.

How to import external result into GeniE to do plate code check

To import an external result file into GeniE for a plate code check, follow these steps:

Prepare FE model:

Open an existing workspace XXX.gnx that includes the same mesh as result file. Alternatively, import T#.fem file into a new workspace (Make sure not to check the option “Create analysis activity” when importing T#.fem file).

Import external result file:

Ensure that the analysis activity only includes mesh activity before importing external result file. If the analysis activity includes the structural (Sestra) analysis activity, uncheck the option “linear structural analysis”.

Then import external result file into workspace ( File->Import-> External Results SIN file ) and check the option “create load cases”. Result cases matches with existing load cases. For result cases without match, load cases will be created with names <Analysis activity name>.loadCase(N).

Combined result cases can be defined with relevant load factor for further capacity check

Capacity Check:

Create a new capacity manager Select the current analysis activity and apply the relevant rule. Perform the plate code check or beam code check using the result cases

How to output a text file of the wave kinematics in Wajac

There are two ways to print the wave kinematics in Wajac.

KPRT – this command can be used to print out fluid kinematics at a specified point.

The coordinate of this point is specified relative to the origin of the global coordinate system except for the Z coordinate which is relative to the mudline. The fluid velocity and acceleration are printed in wajac.lis file. Maximum 100 points may be specified The command is only applicable for deterministic wave load calculation.

OPT9 in OPTI card – OPT9 can be set to 1.0 2.0 to print the local data from member load generation.

OPT9 = 1.0, then fort.number files will be generated.  OPT9 = 2.0, then prefix_LocalData_<file index>.lis file will be generated. The command can be used for deterministic wave load calculation and irregular wave load calculation. Below is an example in the _LocalData_6.lis file. The file contains the fluid velocity, acceleration, Morison load intensity value of each member.

How to set environment variable to connect to network license server

The following system environment variable has to be set on end user and client machines to have Nauticus Hull and Sesam programs connect to a network license server:

DNVSLM_LICENSE_FILE = 2002@ Servername ; C:Flexlm

How to edit the system environment variable:

Go to Control Panel -> System -> Advanced System Settings -> Environment variables -> System variables -> New or Edit

Replace  Servername  with the relevant network name of the license server. Sometimes the full domain name or IP adress may be required.

You need local admin privileges to edit the system environment variables.

Several licenses can be listed and will then be searched in the listed order. In this example two different license servers are tried before looking for a local license file:

DNVSLM_LICENSE_FILE = 2002@ Servername1;

2002@ Servername2 ; C:Flexlm

Note that 3rd party programs from Sintef Ocean (using the MARINTEK vendor daemon), Sima and Patran-Pre (using the MSC vendor daemon) require the following separate system environment variables:

MARINTEK_LICENSE_FILE = 2002@ Servername

SIMA_LICENSE_FILE = 2002@ Servername

MSC_LICENSE_FILE = 2002 Servername

How to set up load case numbering for Submod?

Any local loads in the local model (submodel) has to use exactly the same load case numbers as in the global model, i.e. a 1:1 mapping.

Submod will fetch the displacements from the global model, and put these on to the local model for each load case in the global model. If these do not match the local loads, the displacements from the global model will not either match the local loads, thus giving wrong results.

This means that dummy, empty, load cases may need to be created to make sure that the wanted load cases match. Alternatively, in GeniE, the "FEM load case" number may be changed.

And, it is not possible to add more load cases into the local model, as these will end up with zero displacements (=fixed) on the boundary of the submodel.

How to solve a Windows installer error during DNV GL Software programs installation?

When installing one of the DNV Software programs, you get the following error message:

“You must install a Windows Service Pack which contains a newer version of the Windows Installer Service”.

This error is commonly caused by either missing redistributables or not having the latest version of the Windows Installer installed.  The below link takes you to the latest version of the Windows Installer from Microsoft's website.

Download and install the version appropriate for your operating system specifying either a 32bit or 64bit version . Then restart the Sesam installation.

HydroD Compartments and superelements

Can a superelement be mirrored in Presel and compartments/tanks still be used? No. If a superelement is mirrored, the compartments will by default be defined across the space between the superelements, at least in Wadam. The centre of the compartment will be computed from the corners of the combined compartment's load case (from both the original and the mirrored superelement). This problem is that the same dummy load cases are defined in both superelements after the mirror operation. The solution is to mirror the superelement in GeniE, and renumber the compartment load cases, to create separate incidents of the superelements (e.g. T7.FEM and T8.FEM) to be assembled in Presel.

An exception is for a centre compartment with one half modelled in one superelement. When mirrored, this will make up the complete compartment.

HydroD composite model: How to make sure Morison loads are included in the Sestra structural analysis?

How to use a composite model (Morison model plus shell model) in a HydroD/Wadam/Wasim load transfer analysis? In order to use the anchor loads and any other loads from the Morison model in the structural analysis in Sestra, the Morison model has to be part of the structural model. The recommended method is to use a “Single superelement composite model”. This means that the complete model can be created in one model, i.e. one superelement (one T#.FEM file), and this file can be read into HydroD as both a Morison model and the Structural model. In this method, all loads, both accelerations, surface pressures and Morison loads, will be part of the same load file (L#.FEM). More information is found in the Wadam user manual. The HydroD user manual and release notes (for HydroD 6 versions) can also be useful. If the Morison model is a separate model (T#.FEM, e.g. T2.FEM), Wadam/Wasim will create a load file, e.g. L2.FEM, for the Morison loads, including anchor loads etc. Unless T2.FEM is also a part of the structural model, Sestra will not read the L2.FEM file. Only the L files matching the T files in the structural model will be used. In this case a superelement model assembled in Presel is required. This means that supernodes (special boundary conditions) need to be defined in the Morison model, e.g. T2.FEM. These need to match the supernodes for the connecting superelements (shell model). Then read T2.FEM into Presel together with the other superelements etc.

HydroD Damping Tutorial

This FAQ describes how to create and use a free surface mesh in HydroD and Wadam. A Sesam Manager zip file is . HydroD 4.10, HydroMesh, Wadam and Postresp are used in this example. Create a new job in Sesam Manager and import the zip file. Open the HydroD_DampingTutorial.pdf file attached to the job and follow the instructions. NOTE: After importing the zip file make sure the HydroD version is 4.10. There are two purposes of this tutorial:

1. Show how to create free surface meshes (models) using HydroMesh
2. Show how to use these models in Wadam for:  a. Damping surfaces in moonpools or narrow gaps  b. Fixed lids for irregular frequency removal  c. Free surface meshes for any of the following uses   i. Second-order analysis   ii. Wave drift damping or forward speed analysis   iii. Offbody points

HydroD Wadam - Coordinate systems

The origin of the input system is defined as the origin of the model system after a possible translation in HydroD, this because HydroD will perform the translation by actually changing the various coordinates in the T#.FEM file before it is handed over to Wadam. The global coordinate system of HydroD and Wadam has its origin in the water line, directly above the origin of the input system - normal to the water plane.

When a structural model is translated in HydroD, and used in a load transfer analysis, it is very important to use the translated T#.FEM file in any subsequent structural analysis, in Sestra. The translated T#.FEM file is found in the relevant WadamRun folder within the HydroD workspace.

HydroD Wadam: Morison model and beam element type

Before Wadam version 9.7: lease note that the Morison model used in Wadam has to be created by using the standard 2 node beam element.

Beam elements meshed as second/higher order, 3 node, beam elements will be neglected by Wadam.

A typical message in the print file from Wadam, Wadam1.lis is, in section 2.2:

-  nn - ELEMENTS OF ILLEGAL TYPE ARE DETECTED AND DROPPED.

When creating the Morison model in GeniE, this element type is ensured by NOT selecting the option for use of second order elements in the Edit - Rules - Meshing dialogue.

HydroD Wasim - T-files created from meshing a .PLN file

HydroD will create a number of T-files when meshing the section model (.pln file). The files are described as follows:

T7301.FEM - mesh of dry part of structure (above sea)

T7302.FEM - mesh of wet part of structure

T7303.FEM - mesh of sea

T7310.FEM - mesh of structure + sea (T7301+T7302+T7303)

T7320.FEM - mesh of structure (T7301+T7302), may be used as panel model

All these models are given in the input coordinate system (same as the section model).

T7310 includes mirror images in the case of symmetry. In addition, the model T7373.FEM is also mesh of the sea, but in the global coordinate system.

T7320.FEM does not contain symmetric parts. It is just the union of the wet and dry part. This superelement model can be used as panel model for Wadam for all loading conditions. This is what actually happens automatically when you import a section model, create the SectionHullMesh and refer to this HydroModel in a Wadam or hydrostatic analysis. The symmetry property is also automatically handled.

T7310 is used if you want to inspect the mesh in Xtract. It is not used for anything in connection with any type of HydroD analysis. Inspecting the mesh in Xtract was important in the old Wasim Manager which had limited graphical functionality, but it is not really needed with HydroD so this file is basically superfluous.

T7373.FEM - mesh of sea in Global coordinate system. May potentially be used as surface model in a Second order or a Wave Drift Damping Wadam analysis or alternatively as an offbody model for Wadam animations. In the last case it is however probable that in the case of symmetry you will want to create a model which includes symmetric parts.

With the possible exception of T7373 (and T7310 if you really want to use Xtract to inspect the mesh) the user should not really need to relate to any of these files. (As mentioned T7320 is automatically used as panel model without any need to specify this for the user).

HydroD/Wadam: How to use file names for models in a Multibody analysis?

Regarding the T#.FEM files in a multibody analysis, the panel models for different vessels must have a unique'superelement' number (e.g. T1.FEM and T2.FEM). They cannot be distinguished by a prefix in the file name, or by a different path, only.

The reason for this is that HydroD will strip off the path\prefix when copying these files into the Wadam run folder, thus making Wadam see only one of the files, if they both have names like <path\prefix>T1.FEM. Please also remember that this superelement number in the file name needs to be defined in the model, like in GeniE (Edit - Rules - Meshing). Renaming the file from for example T1.FEM to T2.FEM will not work because this number is also given inside the file (in the first line).

HydroD/Wadam: Prefix of T#.FEM files

When T#.FEM file are read into HydroD/Wadam, a prefix of the T file will automatically be neglected and only the characters after ‘T’ will be read by Wadam.

For example, ‘VesselT1.FEM’ and ‘ShipT1.FEM’ will have the same name in a Wadam run in HydroD, which is T1.FEM. This will cause trouble if more than one HydroModel exists in one workspace and different T files are read in different places, for example in a multibody analysis.

So T#.FEM files are needed to be assigned with different recognized numbers, like ‘VesselT1.FEM’ and ‘ShipT2.FEM’.

Please also remember that this superelement number in the file name needs to be defined in the model, like in GeniE (Edit - Rules - Meshing). Renaming the file from for example T1.FEM to T2.FEM will not work because this number is also given inside the file.

HydroD: How to include compartments when using multiple instances of the superelement in Presel?

It is not possible to reuse superelements with compartment definitions in HydroD. The only exception is if a compartment is actually split in two or more superelements, e.g. at the centre line of a vessel. The reason for this is that the load case definitions for compartments must be unique in the 1st  level models. Reused superelements will have the same load case numbers as the original, modelled, superelements. Load combinations in Presel are not used for these dummy load cases. HydroD, Wadam and Wasim  will read the definitions as created in the 1st level model only. The way to do this with superelements is to create more superelement T-files in GeniE, with specific load case numbers for the compartments in each; one superelement for each location in the complete model. Or, alternatively, not use the superelement technique this way.

HydroD: How to include mooring stiffness into the motion analysis?

The anchor stiffness is included by way of a Morison model. Given a Morison model, normally created in GeniE, mooring stiffness may be added by an anchor element or a TLP element and the corresponding anchor/tlp properties.

The Morison model may consist of one or more beams only, with their nodes giving positions for the mooring elements.

To include the mooring force into a load transfer analysis, the Morison model must normally be assembled with the shell structural model in a superelement assembly (using Presel).

Alternatively, a restoring matrix may be defined directly.

HydroD: How to select filling fractions for sub model?

If the whole compartment in the sub model is fully wet or dry, then the filling fraction for that compartment can be defined to be 1 or 0.

If a compartment is not completely modelled in the sub model, and it is partly filled only, then some special technic is needed for filling fraction defined.

Go to GeniE first, using the global model and look at the interesting compartment. Carefully select the wetted/submerged internal compartment surface in the sub model, according to the filling fraction, assign them ‘wet surface’ property. Then apply the correct load case number.

Then run submod (the same as before).

Import into HydroD the modified sub model with only partly defined wetted internal surface.

Assign filling fraction for this compartment to be 1.

So the correct internal wet surface will be generated from HydroD and read into Wadam/Wasim.

Also remember to define the correct Compartment points, typically taken from the global analysis, from Wadam.lis or from HydroD information.

HYDROD: How to use (old) quasi-static load transfer option and local structure model with HydroD?

The calculation of static load inside a compartment may be difficult when the tank is not modelled completely.

When using the (old) quasi-static method, defining Compartment points in HydroD is required (in the Loading Condition) to give Wadam the correct position of the acceleration and zero pressure points. The correct position may typically be found from the compartment data for the global, complete, model. Right-click a compartment and select Information.

If the local model contains parts above the free surface of the compartment (but still not the complete comparment), HydroD cannot remove properly the wet part of the compartment above the actual free surface, as in normal cases.  

To avoid this problem, the best way is to remove the wet surface, or dummy hydro pressure, from the elements above the free surface. This must be done in the modeller, e.g. GeniE or Patran-Pre.

In some cases, simulating a high filling fraction (like almost full) may be done by defining a full tank with a reduced density.

HydroD: Why is there some times a problem in using a model from Patran-Pre?

If a material and thickness is not properly defined, the T#.FEM file from Patran-Pre will not be correct.

The thickness record (GELTH) is written to the T-file with zero thickness for shell elements that have no property defined in Patran-Pre.  Reading of this T-file by other programes (e.g. HydroD, Wadam or Sestra) will result in error termination.

Import ANSYS model to Genie

There is a converter from ANSYS to Sesam (GeniE) which is part of our utility software called Prepost. Please refer to Sesam_Ansys.pdf (located in Prepost installation folder) document for Ansys (*.cdb) conversion. The conversion from Ansys to Sesam is explained in section 3.2. Basically, it only consists of a READ command to read in the Ansys file and a WRITE command to write out the Sesam FEM file. Below is the Prepost input example: OPEN .. READ ANSYS, ' ' FileName 0 1 WRITE FEM-FORMATTED, ' ' T1 1 Use Sesam Manager to create a job with a Prepost activity and start Prepost from there. Please note that only older Ansys database versions are supported. Version 10 should work fine. There have been some updates for version 12 or 13, but not all options may be supported (refer to the attached document).

License error: invalid host when starting old Sesam programs (HydroD 4.10, Sestra 8.8, Profast)

License error: invalid host when starting old Sesam program (HydroD 4.10, Sestra 8.8, Profast) HydroD4.10, Sestra 8.8, Profast, and some other old Sesam programs, are not compatible with the latest dongle driver on some windows systems. The walkaround is to downgrade the dongle driver to 11.15.  

1. Delete the HASP folder in registry editor, as shown below. This will uninstall the license dongle driver.
2. Install License dongle driver 11.15, which can be downloaded from (copy link if not working)

License file error when upgrading to License Manager Flexlm v11.17

Can't start license service after upgrading the License Manager to Flexlm v11.17 for Sesam and Nauticus Hull. Get the following error: Unsupported license file encoding. Please ensure that the file is either ASCII or UTF-8 encoded and try again This is due to a bug in lmgrd v11.17, whereby some license files with certain characters will not work. We've seen this issue for a license file with the Norwegian character ø, and it may occur for other such characters too. The issue will nevertheless not occur as long as lmgrd is started from license manager. The workaround is to open the license file in a text editor and save it as UTF-8 and not ANSI, then restart the license service.

Licensing: Can I use more than one Flex-ID dongle on a single machine?

Multiple USB dongles can be plugged into a USB port with the following limitation: FlexID  9 is limited to one dongle on Windows x64 for programs built with the old Sesam licensing component. This applies to all program version released before 2016 and some program version released later.

Licensing: How do I create/edit license environment variables?

To create or edit a license environment variable, follow the below steps:

Right-click on My Computer, and choose "Properties" from the menu. (or go to Control Panel and select System)

Click "Advanced system settings". (or click on the tab "Advanced")  

Click the button "Environment Variables".

If you are the only user for this computer, update "User variables", otherwise go to “System variables” (or "Environment Variables"). Click the button "New".

If you are modifying an existing environment variable or the environment variable already exists, select it and click "Edit".

Fill in the details as follows:

              Variable name : DNVSLM_LICENSE_FILE

              Variable value : port number@your server name (e.g. )

              You can add several values by separating them with a semi colon ;

Note: DNVGL uses the following environment variables:

Nauticus and Sesam: DNVSLM_LICENSE_FILE

SIMO/RIFLEX: MARINTEK_LICENSE_FILE

Patran-Pre:  MSC_LICENSE_FILE

Licensing: How do I define a "License Path" on my (client) computer?

The license path tells the DNV Software applications where to look for licenses. Licenses are typically located on a license server in your network (network license) and/or on a license file that is stored on your computer (local license). If the local license is tied to a dongle, this dongle needs to be mounted to your computer.

The DNV Software License Manager creates the license path during installation, see for details.

You may also define/change the license path manually by defining/changing environment variable(s):

Nauticus and Sesam: DNVSLM_LICENSE_FILE=c:\flexlm;2002@optional-network-license-server

SIMO/RIFLEX: MARINTEK_LICENSE_FILE=c:\flexlm;2002@localhost;2002@optional-network-license-server

Patran-Pre:  MSC_LICENSE_FILE=c:\flexlm;2002@localhost;2002@optional-network-license-server

See " " if you are unfamiliar with environment variables.

Licensing: How do I use a dongle on a different computer?

To use a dongle on a different computer, please follow these steps:

1. Copy the license file from C:\Flexlm to the new computer and paste it in the C:\Flexlm folder. Please create this folder if it does not exist.
2. Download and install the latest version of the license dongle driver . Alternatively, for 3rd party produts using MARINTEK vendor daemon, download and install the latest version of the  . Remember to check the 'USB dongle driver for FLEXID 9 (Aladdin Knowledge Systems)' option to install the dongle drivers.
3. Attach the dongle to the new PC.
4. Install the applications you would like to run.
5. Start your application. Please note that  newer versions may be available in:

Licensing: How to fix problems with dongle licenses

Using a FLEXLM license dongle requires installation of a driver, either by downloading, unzipping and installing:

(HASP HL Pro drivers for both x86 and x64)  

OR

by checking the option 'USB dongle driver for FLEXID 9' during installation of the license manager:

(only x64)

Newer versions may be available in:

If you get error message about invalid host the dongle has not been recognized. Check that the dongle lamp is lit. Installing the dongle driver usually fixes the problem.

Driver should be installed before mounting the dongle the first time (to avoid auto-installation of driver found on Windows update). You may try the dongle in different a USB port, and also remove other dongles.

If the dongle still doesn't work, use the following link to check the dongle is recognized:

OR

LMTOOLS (part of the licenses manager installation):

Start C:\Program Files\DNVGL\Flexlm\bin\lmtools.exe Select the "System Settings" tab. The FLEXID window should now display the dongle number

Note that licenses for the third party products using the MARINTEK vendor daemon also require a running license service (install license manager). Check that the license manager is installed and that the service is running (see C:\Flexlm\dnvs.log fil). The dongle must be mounted before restarting service or rebooting. Use this_host for server name, e.g. .

Relevant system environment variables:

DNVSLM_LICENSE_FILE = C:\Flexlm

MARINTEK_LICENSE_FILE = 2002@this_host

SIMA_LICENSE_FILE =

Whilst most new program versions (possibly since 2016) has the new common licensing component that supports multiple dongles, programs built with the old licening (auxlib) component only supports one dongle mounted at the time.

Contact software support if you require further help.

Licensing: How to install or update a network license on a license server?

The attached document is a step by step guide on how to install and update a network license including firewall settings. Please see the attached document .

Licensing: Why do I need to install DNV Software license Manager on my computer when I have a local license?

You need to install the DNV Software License Manager if:

the license is tied to a dongle (to install the dongle driver)

you have a local license of  SIMO/Riflex or PatranPre

Nauticus and SESAM license licenses do not require an installation of the DNV Software License Manager.

However, we recommend that you always install DNV Software License Manager. The reason for this is that the installation defines the license path and installs a few license utilities.

If you choose not to install DNV Software license Manager, you need to define the licensepath manually, see xxx for details.

Manager: How to install Manager for use with SESAM 2011 installation?

From the Sesam 2011 Installation guide, chapter 5.2 Sesam Manager configuration:

Furthermore, replacing the Sesam.ini with the AVM means that it is no longer possible to use the Sesam Manager on Win 7 without special provisions. If using the Sesam Manager from the Sesam 2008 DVD release, you must edit the application paths to the individual Sesam applications to apply the versions from the Sesam 2011 DVD Release. This is done by using menu Options | Programs | Executable... where you may set paths to individual applications. This must be done before creating/opening a project, and the settings will then be applied to all new projects. Old projects must be updated one by one as explained below. Note that the old Sesam Manager is not delivered on this DVD.

From 2011 the Sesam executable files are stored in separate folders while Manager is based on having all files in one Sesam\bin folder. Hence you need to tell Manager where to find the .exe-files. Manager uses two files, Manager.dat and "Project".jnl where the program executable for each program can be set. These files control where Manager can find the program executables. Manager’s use of the two files are explained in the user manual section 4.2. 

The attached zip file includes the set_EXE.JNL file, which is a sample Manager journal file to set program executables. Either run the file interactively in Manager or add the command to run it in the beginning of another journal file, e.g.: @set_EXE.JNL

The file must be run each time a new project is started in Manager. Once the project has been saved, the updated settings are remembered.

You will need to extract the SACWD32.dll, DFROM.dll and Manager.exe files, which are included in the  file, to these (default) locations:

C:\Program Files (x86)\DNVS\Sesam\bin\SACWD32.dll

C:\Program Files (x86)\DNVS\Sesam\bin\DFORM.dll C:\Program Files (x86)\DNVS\Sesam\bin\Manager.exe

The  also includes the Manager User Manual and the installation files. Please see the attached document .

Midnodes incorrectly positioned, not in the middle of the edge or out of line

When using 2nd order elements in GeniE, the midnodes are placed at the parameter position 0.5 of the curve between the end nodes. For some models, the parametrization is non-uniform; this may lead to distorted mesh, missing mesh, or wrongly positioned midnodes. This can happen if the underlying geometry description is distorted.

Enabling "Uniformized face parametrization" from the Edit > Rules > Meshing menu will will better align the midnodes correctly , but it can have negative impact on performance. The alternative is to recreate the plate/shell to get a better parametrization, or manually use mesh edit functionality to move nodes a little (the mid nodes will follow and snap to correct position).

Modal Load Factor

The 'modal earthquake excitation forces' (or 'modal participation factors' or 'modal load factors') are computed using formula B.353 in the Sestra manual where the a_j are vectors of dimension six. The sum of squares of the elements of the a_j can be compared to the relevant numbers in the sum of masses reported in the Sestra print file.

When Master-Slave reduction is used the sum of masses of the top level (the complete model) as reported in the Sestra print file is the sum of masses of the first level superelements. However, the a_j factors are computed using the reduced top level mass matrix, i.e. the M_ii matrix in formula B.353. M_ii is the same as M_red of equation B.268. Thus the ratio of the sum of squares of a_j to the sum of the masses will not necessarily approach 1 from below when increasing number of eigenvalues, i.e. it may be larger than one.

Rather than making any change to the current computation of modal load factors and sum of masses we will, hopefully within this year, implement computation of modal load factors for the 'implicitly restarted Lanczos method' (EIGA command). Using this very efficient eigenvalue solver we believe the use of the Master-Slave technique will no longer be necessary. Or if you still have superelements you can define many more or all degrees of freedom as super in which case the deviation from 1 of the said ratio will be reduced significantly.

NA-17 Nauticus Hull Cargo Hold Analysis – CSR BC&OT. Local structural strength, fine mesh and fatigue

The following topics are covered:

• Local structural strength
• Fine mesh models
• Fatigue Note that the following is covered in other tutorials:
• Create cargo hold model
• Details about transfer of rule loads, boundary conditions and corrosion additions
• Details about Hull girder load adjustment
• Verify model
• Yield strength assessment – coarse mesh
• Buckling assessment
• Screening
• Basic reporting

NA-17 Nauticus Hull Cargo Hold Analysis – CSR BC&OT. Yield, buckling assessment and screening

The following topics are covered:

• Prepare cargo hold model
• Transfer of rule loads, boundary conditions and corrosion additions
• Hull girder load adjustment
• Verify model
• Yield strength assessment – coarse mesh
• Buckling assessment
• Screening
• Reporting NB Note that the following topics are covered in separate tutorials:
• Create cargo hold model
• Local structural strength
• Fine mesh models
• Fatigue

Nauticus Hull - Jan 2018 requires minimum DNV Software License Manager 11.14-01

If you get the following license error message when trying to run next generation Nauticus Hull (v20.3 or later) or some component in old Nauticus Hull (i.e. Rule Calculator): 

No valid license found. Closing down. Application name Nauticus Hull ERROR: While checking out a license.

Then note that next generation Nauticus Hull (v20) requires DNV Software License Manager 11.14-01 or later on the license server machine for network (floating) licenses. Client machines (for network licenses) and machines with standalone unlimited licenses do not require such installation, but only setting the system environment variable DNVSLM_LICENSE_FILE correctly. Minimum version of both lmgrd.exe and dnvslm.exe is v11.14.1.1. The license manager is supported only on 64 bit systems (since 2017).

The license manager can be installed either from the Nauticus Hull Rulecheck or FEA Package, or downloaded from the customer portal (under Sesam).

Nauticus Hull, Nauticus Machinery and Sesam - Supported operating systems from October 1st 2014

Microsoft has announced that official support for XP ended on the 8 th of April 2014. Windows XP has been superseded by other versions of the windows operating system, most recently Windows 8.1

Following the end of official support by Microsoft, all future versions of Sesam, Nauticus Hull and Nauticus Machinery after 1 st October 2014 will not support XP.

Windows 7 and Windows 8 are primarily based on 64bit technology. This means that all new releases of Sesam, Nauticus Hull and Nauticus Machinery after 1 st October 2014 will support Win7 and Win 8 on 64bit platforms.

We appreciate that this change will potentially be significant for some of our customers. All views/feedback on the current proposal are welcome and should be sent to the  .

No license found for Prefem (for internal DNV GL users)

Starting 2019, Prefem is NOT added to the Network license on the DNV GL license servers, such as OSL3001, OSL3002, SHA1170, HOU1170, HOU1173 AND SNG1112.   Prefem is a discontinued product that was last compiled 15 years ago. (Similarly, Prewad was also discontinued many years ago.) GeniE (or Patran-Pre) has replaced modelling of plate type structures. Prefem has been removed from the self-service for DNV GL O&G and Maritime, from 2019.   However, we can provide standalone licenses/local network license if you reply to the following : Prefem used to be part of the Sesam suite of programs, but was discontinued many years ago. The last version was compiled in 2003. Other products are also discontinued like Prewad. We can provide you with a license, but please confirm that you acknowledge, for the discontinued products, that we: • do not provide support • do not take responsibility for the results/compatibility on newer operating systems • that we potentially in the future cannot provide licenses given changes in e.g. license manager/license generator/license components compatibility with updates to operating system

No valid license found – or – ERROR: While checking out license. Version of vendor daemon is too old.

If you get the following license error message when trying to run new versions of Sesam or Nauticus Hull: No valid license found – or – Unable to check out any license Application name : xxx ERROR: While checking out a license. Version of vendor daemon is too old. then note that new versions of Sesam and Nauticus Hull are created with new versions of FlexNet licensing, requiring license manager or dongle driver on the same version level. The fix is to upgrade the license manager (for server licenses) or dongle driver (for dongle licenses) to the latest version. The FlexLM version listed further down in the error message shows the minimum required level of the license manager, e.g.: FlexLM version: 11.17.0.0 The license manager is supported only on 64 bit systems (since 2017). The latest version of the license manager is always included in the Sesam and Nauticus Hull packages, and can also be directly downloaded from the DNV website.

Open large FEM files in Usfos Xact

Sometimes, when trying to use Usfos Xact to open a large FEM model file, it will report an out-of-memory problem and fail to open the model in the graphics user interface. When this happens, user could use Struman to convert the FEM model file into Usfos result RAF file format. The Usfos result file format could handle much larger file sizes up to a few GBs.

Part ship Structural Analysis – DNV GL Offshore rules

The following topics are covered:

• Prepare cargo hold model
• Input non-linear hull girder load correction factors 
• Transfer of rule loads, boundary conditions and corrosion additions
• Hull girder load adjustment
• Verify model
• Yield strength assessment – coarse mesh
• Buckling assessment NB Note that the following topics are covered in separate tutorials. These tutorials are admittedly based on CSR BC&OT, but the procedures in the software tools are the same.
• Create cargo hold model
• Screening
• Reporting
• Local structural strength
• Fine mesh models
• Fatigue

PATRAN-PRE (ALL): How to define beam properties

See the attached document for how to define beam properties in Patran-Pre. Please see the attached document .

PATRAN-PRE: License error about missing MSC.Patran license after installing Patran-Pre v2010r2 and later

When starting Patran-Pre 2010r2 or later the first time after installing it, an Error reported from application Security is displayed and no license is found. If the error message is about a missing MSC.Patran license, the last step of the installation is missing.

Without this last step, Patran-Pre tries to obtain native MSC.Patran licenses instead of Patran-Pre licenses. This can be fixed by doing either of these steps:

  Add -iam sesam to the PatranPre 2010 shortcut. e.g. C:\MSC.Software\Patran_x64\20102\bin\patran.exe -stdout -iam sesam

Or, you may create the environment variable P3_IAM and give it the value sesam (P3_IAM=sesam).

More details can be found in the Patran-Pre release notes.

Pile self-weight in Splice

Below is the information that how Pile Self-Weight is handled in Splice.

1. The self weights of the pile wall and the soil plug or fluid inside the pile are calculated by Pilgen from the given geometry and unit weights.
2. The axial forces acting upon the pile are:

• Axial force at pile top
• Given axial forces at any nodes
• Self weight of pile steel and soil plug

3. The sum of these forces must be balanced by:

• Side friction (t-z)
• Tip resistance (q-z)

4. Splice assumes that the pile is plugged. For a coring pile, the user must therefore manually calculate the equivalent closed pile tip resistance.

5. If self weights of pile steel and soil plug are to be included in the Splice model, some care is needed when specifying the ultimate tip resistance, q.ult. The user must decide if total or submerged pile unit weights are to be used. For a pile tip in clay, the ultimate unit tip resistance is normally taken as 9xSu. However, if pile self weights are included, the q.ult value should also include the weight of the overburden, i.e. q.ult = 9xSu+Gamma x Z. Gamma is either total or submerged unit weight, depend on which the user selected for the pile weights.

6. For a pile tipped in sand, the API/ISO main text method finds q.ult as:

 q.ult = Nq x Sigz' < q.limit

Since Nq becomes 1.0 for a sand friction angle of zero, the Gamma x Z contribution to the tip stress is already included.

7. Based upon the above, the expression for capacity in compression should be:

Comp. Cap = Soil res. - pile wall weight - soil plug weight

Normal practice is believed to be to drop the soil plug weight, assuming that this is balanced  by the outside overburden. If the above reasoning is accepted, that practice is slightly non-conservative for a pile tipped in sand.

Because of this uncertainty/inconsistence, Splice rev.4 and rev.5 manuals state that "For simplicity, self weight of pile steel and soil plug have been neglected".

8. Weight of pile steel and soil plug always act together, so Splice has no possibility of printing the two individual contributions.

9. The gravity loading GZ has a fixed value, independent of compressive or tensile loading of the pile.

Postresp, Stofat, Framework: Read jnl file

A JNL command file cannot be read from within Postresp (or Stofat, Framework) when it is located in a folder using blanks (spaces) in the name or path. Workaround: copy the file to another folder, e.g.

Postresp: How to define off body points for Postresp in a HydroD and Wadam analysis?

To use off body point results in Postresp, specific off body points must be defined in HydroD, using coordinates given in the Global coordinate system, i.e. having the origin in the still water line.

Further calculations can be done in Postresp on the results in these off body points.

The off body point grid is used for visualization & animation in Xtract only.

Prepost: Use of CREATE HYDRODYNAMIC-INTERFACE

Prepost can convert results from a structural results file R#.SIN, based on frequency domain wave loads, to a hydrodynamic type of results file, like G1.SIF, for use in Postresp.

This is for example relevant if statistical calculations are needed for structural responses of stresses or displacements, because Postresp cannot read the R file directly. The command syntax is typically:

 OPEN, SIN-DIRECT-ACCESS, ' ' R100, OLD, READ-ONLY  CREATE HYDRODYNAMIC-INTERFACE, ' ', G1, 1 NODAL-DISPLACEMENTS 1 X END

Please see the user manual for Prepost for details.

Notice that this command is only available if the S#.FEM file is available when running Sestra, together with the T#.FEM and L#.FEM files.

Presel HydroD Xtract: Display of beam elements from Equipment vertical mass option

The display of beam elements from the equipment vertical mass option is different in Presel, HydroD and Xtract.

Presel and HydroD will show the "vertical mass" beam elements as beam 'tents', i.e. without eccentricities, in the same way as for the option "beams and mass" from equipments.

Xtract will show the vertical beam elements, i.e. with eccentricities, when the beam cross section is shown. In wireframe mode of beam elements, the eccentricities are not shown. The beam elements are shown in the same way as for the option "beams and mass" from equipments.

Programe association on .gni files.

To the unset the GeniE programe version on the .gni file the following has to be done.

"Start---Run," type in "regedit"  and try deleting .gni file associations from the "Registry Editor." Make sure you delete all the file associations.

PULS (All): The four variants of PULS

PULS is available in four variants based on the same calculation engine. Three of the variants are licensed and installed differently:

- PULS integrated in GeniE supporting the CSR Tank and offshore (DNV-RP C201, Pt 2) code checks. This requires the GeniE CCPL licenses and the installation of both GeniE and Nauticus Hull. Previously this also required the installation of RuleService.

- PULS Excel spreadsheet This requires the PULSXL license and is part of the NH rule check license and installation.

- PULS AV (Advanced viewer) standalone program. This requires the PULS AV license within the buckling assessment package (BAP) and the installation of Nauticus Hull. Note that the BAP package license also includes the above PULSXL license.

Note that PULS is also being used in Nauticus Hull Section Scantlings for hull girder capacity in the ULS check according to Offshore Standard DNVGL-OS-C102 (Ch.2 Sec.4.3). This requires the Nauticus Hull Rule Check license and installation of Nauticus Hull.

Results in truss elements

Truss members are a somewhat special beam member in Sesam. Truss members can be analysed as part of a normal linear structural analysis or as part of a tension-compression analysis (e.g. if the truss members have been set to tension- or compression-only). While they are beam members, the results are shown slightly different compared to normal (non-truss) beam members.

In GeniE's result presentation normal beams will only show forces. However, truss members will not show the forces in GeniE and Xtract, but stresses. As such, if you want to view the results of the truss members, you will need to inspect the stress along the member. You are able to inspect the truss member results via the Results view in GeniE or via Xtract. The truss axial stresses are available via G-STRESS > sigxx. The force can then be easily computed using the cross-sectional area of the member.

No code check is available for truss members.

Rule Check (All from 16.0) Fatigue calculations (CN 30.7): Wrong Relative deflections from FEA

When performing Fatigue life checks in Cross Section Analyses, relative displacements that have been calculated in a FEA analysis in GeniE can be directly imported.

Currently this import does not work correctly, and the displacements are wrongly interpreted. This option should therefore not be used.

However it is possible to specify relative deflections manually. This method is described in the attached document.

  Please see the attached document .

Running GeniE through command prompt.

The following command below works for starting and exiting GeniE through command prompt.

C:\Program Files\DNVS\GeniE\ Program\GeniEr top2 /new /com=input.js /exit  

Please also see GeniE User manual Vol 1 chapter 4.1 for more details and pictorial representation.

Send a command to the operating system from a Sesam journal file (DOS Windows)

For classic Sesam you may send a command to the operating system ( DOS Windows) from a Sesam journal file by typing a ! before the command. E.g. ! copy FileA FileB ! C:"Program Files"\DNVS\SESAM\Bin\Installjac.exe Remenber to quote blanks in DOS. E.g. "Program Files" Can be used in Manager to start a non supported program

Sesam Compartments with Dipole elements

How to create a compartment model including dipole elements in GeniE, and use them in HydroD? Please see the document which is found in the , together with model files. Notice that there is also a tutorial in HydroD 6.2 and later versions on how to use dipole elements in the panel model and compartments for Wadam analyses, available from the Help menu.

Sesam Converters (All version) Merge FEM files into one, or Merge T1.FEM with L1.FEM file

Sesam Converters support to convert single #.FEM file, however some analysis will produce two FEM files (T1.FEM, L1.FEM), then it might be difficult to convert them in Sesam Converters directly. For such cases, user might merge two (or more) FEM files into one file through below steps. Below example is the case that T1.FEM and L1.FEM file exist.  

1. Open L1.FEM     
2. Copy all data except below

• Except IDENT , DATA , where located starting point    
• Except IEND , where the end of the file    

3. Open T1.FEM
4. Paste all data into location before IEND      
5. Save it as new file ( Merged_T1.FEM )

Then user can convert that Merged_T1.FEM using Sesam Converters. For list of the supported element types for conversion, please refer to “Technical Specification” for Sesam Converters, and “user manual” of Sesam Converters. All these documents can be found in installation folder of Sesam Converters.

Sesam Converters (ALL versions from ALL): How to convert and import Nastran models?

See the (also attached) chapters 2.9 and 3.9 for both overview and details about how to convert typical ship models in Nastran .bdf file format to Sesam T#.FEM files and import them into GeniE. Please see the attached document .

Sesam Converters (ALL versions): Separate load file (L#.FEM) is not supported

There is no support for conversion from/to a separate Sesam load file (L#.FEM). The workaround is to include all loads in the input file (T#.FEM file or .bdf) before conversion.

Sesam Converters (ALL): Limitations to line loads on beams

This applies to conversion from Sesam to Nastran. The beam element line loads defined on the Sesam BELOAD1 cards can have arbitrary end node offsets, but the similar Nastran PLOAD1 beam element line load can only have arbitrary end node offsets on node 2. Node 1 can't have a negative offset in element x-direction (overhang). 

In version 2.1-02 and earlier any BELOAD1 card with partial loading are not converted and there are no warnings about this. Thus this load will be missing in the analysis. 

In version 2.2-01 the partially loaded cards are converted, but with a negative value for X1, which gives an error message in Nastran. Alternative workarounds are: - Manually edit X1 to zero. This will then omit the load outside end 1.

• Manually divide the element in two and reverse the element at end 1 such that it has it's end 2 at the original position of end 1. Then the load has to be updated manually.

Sesam Manager (6.2-01) - Shortcuts

The following keyboard shortcuts exist in Sesam Manager:

F5 - Run job
Ctrl + F5 - Run selected activity
Ctrl + N - New job
Ctrl + 1 - New GeniE job
Ctrl + 2 - New DeepC job
Ctrl + 3 - New HydroD job
Ctrl + O - Open job 
Ctrl + Shift + O - Open list of existing jobs
Ctrl + S - Save current job
Ctrl + Shift + S - Save all jobs
Ctrl + J - Import JS
Ctrl + M - Import XML
Ctrl + P - Import ZIP
Ctrl + L - Import JNL
Ctrl + Shift + J - Export JS
Ctrl + Shift + M - Export XML
Ctrl + Shift + P - Export ZIP
View:
Ctrl + R - Reset Layout
F11 - Full window
Tools:
Alt + A - Start Application Version Manager
Alt + S - Sync Application Version Manager
Alt + L - Translate JNL
Ctrl + T - Save activity as template

Sesam Manager (6.2-03): "System.Xml root element is missing" error when starting Sesam Manager

The following error may occur when starting Sesam Manager:

Application information
Product: Sesam Manager
Version: 6.2.3.0
Location: C:\Program Files (x86)\DNVS\Sesam Manager V6.2-03\Bin\DNVS.Sesam.Manager.Win.exe

System information
OS version: Microsoft Windows NT 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1
Processor count: 8
Working set: 33320960
Is 64-bit process: False
Is 64-bit operating system: True
Has shutdown started: False
CurrentDirectory: C:\Program Files (x86)\DNVS\Sesam Manager V6.2-03\Bin
 
Exception information
Source: Autofac
Message: An exception was thrown while invoking the constructor 'Void .ctor(DNVS.Sesam.Manager.Model.IApplicationPreferences, DNVS.Sesam.Manager.Common.IEventAggregator)' on type 'OptionsService'.
followed by a stack trace and then:
Source: System.Xml
Message: Root element is missing.
This error indicates that one of the xml files used by Sesam Manager has been corrupted.
The file in question is %appdata%\DNVS\SesamManager\DNVS_SesamManager.xml
If the DNVS_SesamManager.xml file is empty, please delete it and restart Sesam Manager.
If the xml is not empty, you may either 
1. Delete the file, but this will also remove your customized settings and recent job history.
2. Send us the file, and we can investigate further.

SESAM MANAGER (All versions): Program crash when opening

On January 2018, Microsoft has released some Windows updates which have been know to cause crash on Sesam Manager and several software from different companies. These updates were later removed from the update history and replaced by fixed versions so users performing updates now should not experience any issue. To fix this, the broken versions must be uninstalled and replaced by the fixed versions.

Further information on the problematic versions of Windows Updates can be found on the links below:

There are several suggestions for fixing the issue among them: direct download of a replacement file or (probably safer) removal and re-installation of the problematic updates ( uninstall KB4055532 and reinstall it; uninstall KB4055002 and install KB 4074880).

Sesam Manager (From ALL to 6.1-02): Jacket 4 Leg Comprehensive example does not run

The Jacket 4 Leg comprehensive example will not run in Sesam Manager versions 6.1-02 and lower, in which the LoadFilePath and LoadFilePrefix fields are not available.  The main .js file in the example has references to these fields and therefore an error occurs when running the example.  The workaround is to use a later version of Sesam Manager or to edit the file Jacket_4Leg_Comprehensive_SMinput.js and comment or delete the 4 command lines that make reference to these fields:

Sestra_static_springed_model.LoadFilePath = "_repository";
Sestra_static_springed_model.LoadFilePrefix = "Static";
...

Sestra_eigenvalue.LoadFilePath = "_repository";
Sestra_eigenvalue.LoadFilePrefix = "Eigenvalue";

Sesam Manager: Use of Prewad and Prefem in Sesam Manager

Taking Prewad as an example to show how to start it from Sesam Manager.

The programs which are not listed in Sesam applications are started using the 'General' activity.

Properties setting:

CommandLineArguments: If you want to start a new calculation, input: /sta=new

If you want to read existing jnl file, input: /sta=new /com-file=PREWAD_in.jnl (your file name)

Name: Name of your Activity ProgramName: Give the path of your .exe file here.

Then run your job.

You may find more information about commands in the.

Notice that some of these programs, like Prefem and Preframe will be included in Sesam Manager 6.2.

SESAM: Documentation of interface file command TDNODE and TDLOAD

Background Specification and explanation about certain commands in the interface files is not covered well enough in the current user documentation of the interface files. There are three different documents about the interface files, they can be downloaded from the MyDNVSOftware portal.

TDNODE

TDNODE command is mentioned in the "Sesam Interface File" document on page 3-46, but it is unfortunately misspelled as TNODE. A more detailed description can be found below:

TDNODE is used for naming joints:

Example TDNODE 4.00000000E+00 3.52000000E+02 1.03000000E+02 0.00000000E+00 Jt1

1st entry is used for the number of total entries trailing so there are 4 entries in this card so 1st location is 4.0000000E00 2nd entry (3.52) is the internal node number for this joint. 3rd entry (1.03) is describing the dimensions of the joint name in the format more accurately described on page 3-46 in the document mentioned above. 4th entry (0) is describing the dimensions of a description in the format more accurately described on page 3-46 in the document mentioned above. This is usually zero.

TDLOAD

The syntax for TDLOAD is very similar to TDNODE.

Example: TDLOAD    4.00000000E+00  1.00000000E+00  1.10000000E+02  0.00000000E+00 Loadcase_1

The only difference is here that the 2nd entry (1.0) is the FEM loadcase number which the individual loads are referencing to.

SESAM: Export/import of stiffness and mass matrices

This is a guide in how to export/import stiffness and mass matrices in Sesam, using Sestra and Presel. The attached .zip file contains a document that is outlining the procedure, along with relevant input files to set up this process using Sesam Manager. Please see the attached document.

Sesam: How to enable stochastic fatigue for a submodel with no local wave loads?

Including local loads like wave loads is normally recommended in a submodel analysis. However, if the wave loads are not important for the submodel analysis, the local wave load analysis may be skipped. In that case the file S#.FEM, required for stochastic fatigue, needs to be created for the submodel.

The S#.FEM file has to be present when Sestra is run for the submodel, together with the T#.FEM file(s) - and L#.FEM file(s) for possible local loads. If not, no stochastic fatigue can be computed later. As the wave load cases for the submodel have to match the wave load cases for the global model, the global S#.FEM file (e.g. S1.FEM) can be copied and renamed to the submodel superelement number (e.g. S4.FEM). Renaming the file is okay because the contents are Sestra commands. (Renaming a T#.FEM model file is not okay.)

Please notice that the contents of the S#.FEM file are described in the Sestra user manual.

SESAM: How to script the installation of Sesam?

To script the installation of Sesam 2011 DVD and all its components, please follow the guidelines in the attachment. Please see the attached document.

SESAM: Minimum and recommended hardware configuration

Below are the minimum and recommended hardware configurations as described in the Sesam DVD 2014 release notes. SUPPORTED OPERATING SYSTEMS The Sesam 2014 Release has been tested on the following operating systems:

• Windows XP, 32 and 64 bit operating systems; Service Pack 3 is required for XP 32bit.
• Windows 7, 32 and 64 bit operating systems
• ndows 8.1, 64 bit operating systems. Notice that the programs marked with “Non-maintained” in Chapter 8 have not been tested on Windows 8.1

We strongly recommend the use of computers that support and have installed 64 bit versions of the windows operative systems.

End of support for Windows XP

Microsoft has announced that official support for XP ended on the 8th April 2014. Windows XP has been superseded by other versions of the Windows operating system, most recently Windows 8.1. Following the end of official support by Microsoft, all future versions of Sesam, Nauticus Hull and Nauticus Machinery will not support XP after 1st October 2014. Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 are primarily based on 64bit technology. This means that all new releases of Sesam, Nauticus Hull and Nauticus Machinery will support Win7 and Win 8 on 64bit platforms after 1st October 2014. We acknowledge that this change will potentially be significant for some of our customers. Please contact us on software.support@dnvgl.com if you have questions or comments.

RECOMMENDED HARDWARE CONFIGURATION Below are two recommendations on hardware as well as more details on graphics drivers that should be used together with GeniE.   Minimum hardware recommendation This configuration is typical for tasks normally limited to beam jacket and topside design analyses including wave and pile/soil analysis. The configuration is also applicable when making super-elements built up of shell and beams. Furthermore, hydrostatic and smaller hydrodynamic analysis (frequency domain) can also be carried out.

  Graphic card: Open GL compatible. May be integrated with processor (e.g. Intel HD). If not OpenGL support, use DX9 as provided in the Sesam installation       

Memory: 2 GB       Processor: 1.75 GHz – Dual core   Storage: 100 GB Display: 17” supporting 1280x1024, alternatively laptop 15” supporting 1280x1024  64-bit version of Windows operative system 

Preferred hardware recommendation This configuration should be used for all other tasks than mentioned above.

Graphic card: Separate OpenGL compatible graphics card (NVIDIA or ATI) with 512MB graphics memory. If not OpenGL support, use DX9 as provided in the Sesam installation.         

Memory: 4 GB Processor: 3.0 GHz Storage: 250 GB Display: 24” supporting 1920x1200 (or-1080), alternatively laptop 17” supporting 1920x1200 (or-1080) 64- bit version of Windows operating system 

Graphics drivers for GeniE The graphics driver is the system level software provided by your Graphics Card supplier (most likely Intel, NVIDIA or ATI) to interface between Windows and the GPU. This is supplied with your operating system or graphics card. The GeniE graphics driver is the software used by GeniE to interface with the graphics driver defined above and is supplied with GeniE.   Use of DX9 DirectX 9.0 (DX9) is the preferred GeniE graphics driver and it is the default on installation. DirectX 9.0c Runtime version 9.27.1734 distributed on June 2010 or a later version of DirectX 9 must be installed on your system. The Sesam installer will install DirectX 9.0c.

Note that although Windows 7 and 8 come with DirectX pre-installed, GeniE uses extra components and so DirectX must be explicitly installed using the Sesam installer or from the Microsoft website. The GeniE DX9 driver is supported on any DirectX 9.0 compliant graphics hardware (Microsoft Shader Model 3) with the latest vendor-supplied drivers.

DirectX 9.0c was first released in August 2004 so older systems will not support the DX9 driver.   Use of OpenGL GeniE supports two different OpenGL drivers. The standard GeniE OpenGL driver (“OpenGL”) is a legacy driver that attempts to support all OpenGL 1.1 hardware. The GeniE OpenGL2 driver (“OpenGL2”) is a shader-based driver that is offered as an alternative should a user encounter problems with other drivers. It attempts to support all OpenGL 2.0+ hardware.   Driver Fallback/OpenGL on Intel GPUs Each time a workspace is opened GeniE detects if there are any problems reported with the current GeniE driver and if so falls back to another GeniE driver until eventually software rendering is used. The word ‘Fallback’ will be shown in the title bar if this has happened.

Due to problems with Intel’s graphics drivers GeniE also attempts to detect if it is being run on an Intel GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) and if so it falls back to the GeniE DX9 driver if possible or to the GeniE OpenGL Software driver. The latter provides no GPU hardware acceleration and so will be slow for large graphical datasets.

This test is done each time a workspace is opened so that on hybrid systems where an Intel GPU is paired with NVIDIA or ATI, GeniE will run the driver specified in the GeniE options on NVIDIA or ATI card, but will fall back if a workspace is opened with the Intel GPU active.   When to consider upgrading your graphics driver It is strongly advised you upgrade your graphics driver if • you are using an old system (>3 years) and have not upgraded the driver

• you have installed Windows 8 on hardware introduced prior to Windows 8
• you encounter graphics problems within GeniE

Although it is perhaps stating the obvious, if you have no graphics problems using GeniE there is no need to upgrade your graphics driver. It is always possible that a newer version of a driver may have bugs not in your current version.

Upgrading the graphics driver is usually best done via the Display Adapter properties dialog in Windows Device Manager.

SESAM: What product is Waloco part of?

Waloco is not its own product, but is part of HydroD ext. STRU with Prod code HYDSTR1 and Wajac with Prod code WAJBA1.

For these products the license file should include Waloco.

Sestra (All version from 10.0) “Not Enough total memory” or “Unable to allocate sufficient memory” message

Below are example of Sestra error message found in Sestra.mlg file, regarding insufficient memory issue. Example 1 : Not enough total (physical + swap) memory for in-core factorization (required memory is 4221 Mb; available total memory is 841 Mb). If running a static analysis with multiple load cases, reduce the number of load cases to store in memory at the same time. Otherwise, exit other processes and/or increase the size of swap memory and then restart Sestra.

Example 2 :     Sestra was unable to allocate sufficient memory.     This error typically occurs when handling many load cases at the same time, especially for models with many elements. Consider whether your analysis can be run with low memory options (SOLV command) or split into multiple analyses; or consider increasing the virtual memory on your system.     Peak memory usage (physical / total): 27410 Mb / 84270Mb. For remedies for this issue,

Workaround 1-1 : Add SOLV card in sestra.inp with TMEM=1 (available from 10.7 version) This enables low memory model. Sestra uses a smaller memory footprint at a modest reduction in performance. For example, Sestra caches only n (instead of all) load vectors at the same time  

Workaround 1-2: Add SOLV card in sestra.inp with both TMEM=1, and NUMLC (NUMLC is available from 10.2 version) When using TMEM, devalue NUMLC=1 or static, and NUMLC=100 for dynamic time-domain analysis. Try smaller value, less than 100 for dynamic analysis.  

Workaround 1-3: Add SOLV card in Sestra.inp with FORCE=1 & OOC=1 (available from 10.2) Default values are FORCE=0 & OOC=0, which is using in-core (in physical memory factorization). This enables Out-of-core (utilizing the HDD) for matrix factorization, which requires less memory, but slow performance.

Workaround 2. Increasing paging files in windows setting. For detail information for SOLV command, please refer Sestra UM and below is one from Sestra 10.16 version.

Sestra 10.16 (released 05 Apr 2022) has been improved for performance of import of load interface files in low-memory model, and for memory footprint for static and dynamic analyses with long load histories, so it’s recommended to always use latest version of Sestra, especially for such cases. Also, make sure that the computer has plenty free hard drive space left for temp files and paging files; normally, the free hard drive space shall be well over 300Gb.

SESTRA (ALL versions from ALL): Analysis with supernodes on the highest level is not possible

Applies from version ALL to version ALL

Running an analysis for a model including piles results in the following error indicated in Sestra.lis:

*** INPUT ERROR ***                                                                                                                Analysis with supernodes on the highest level is not possible                                                  unless saving is specified.

The procedure to solve this issue is outlined in the attached FAQ document. Please see the attached document

SESTRA (ALL versions from ALL): How to obtain modal participation factors in Sestra?

Applies from version ALL to version ALL

Runing Sestra from batch file or Sesam Manager: This is achieved by setting the MOLO parameter on the CMAS command to Sestra equal to 1. Note that the Implicitly Restarted Lanczos method cannot be used for this and the Lanczos method should be used instead.

To see the results, you need to open the results SIN file in Framework. Then, simply click Print > Modal Mass. You can then select the mode shapes for which you want the participation factors (e.g. include all). Next you click Apply, which will show you the resulting modal load factors in x, y and z per mode shape.

Using GeniE 7.2-07 or later:

You can get the modal participation factors directly from the report (FEM Results > FEM Modal Mass Factors) after running an eigenvalue analysis (except Implicitly Restarted Lanczos method).

Using GeniE 7.1-12 or older:

You can follow the attached FAQ document for the procedure. Please see the attached document.

SESTRA (ALL VERSIONS): Base Shear from earthquake analysis

There is no direct way of printing the base shear from earthquake analysis at the moment. However, there is a bit of lengthy procedure for it. To start from scratch, follow these steps,

Run a static Sestra analysis with gravity loading.

Run an eigenvalue analysis in Sestra with MOLO on CMAS set to 1 and results file format set to formatted.

Merge two results file in Prepost – on the merged results file the gravity load is results case 1 under run 1, the mode shapes are stored under run 2.

Run Framework earthquake analysis, in the SELECT command where type of modal combination is chosen select displacements as output. In the RUN command give a name for the run, say QUAKE.

The earthquake run in Framework establishes a result case taking the name of the run, i.e. QUAKE.

Use PRINT DISPLACEMENTS to print displacements for all joints for result case QUAKE. You then get a table over displacements for the earthquake.

Now you have to assign these displacements as prescribed displacements to your model in GeniE. You may have the print of nodal coordinates of your model so you have to either use excel or some other editor to generate all these commands for inserting the supports for creating prescribe displacements.

Typically, you need to create a loadcase, insert support point at the required joints(nodes), changing the boundary conditions to Prescribed in it and then you insert prescribed displacement as a load.

Create a new analysis now and run a static analysis in Sestra of this model. Assuming that the model has spring-to-ground elements connecting it to the sea floor the Sestra analysis will give a sum of reaction forces being the base shear and overturning moment you seek. Note that you cannot use the Multifront solver for this case. The reason for this is that this solver cannot handle a model with absolutely no free degrees of freedom.

The analysis will in fact only consist of a retracking (finding internal forces) since all displacments are known. Switch to the Supermatrix solver by removing the SOLM command.

SESTRA (ALL VERSIONS): Difference between summed loads and reaction forces while using rigid support link

If you are having larger differences in between summed loads and reaction forces, run analysis using 2nd order elements.

SESTRA (ALL VERSIONS): Dynamic analysis with rigid support link

SESTRA (ALL VERSIONS):  If you are using Rigid support link in the model for dynamic analysis then it may end up with an error. It may work in Superlement technique in a way that beam end node (master node) has to be represented as super node.

SESTRA (ALL VERSIONS): Hinges with 2nd order elements

SESTRA (ALL VERSIONS):

End moments will not be zero if you use hinge properties for 2nd order elements.

Sestra (All Versions): How to combine load cases with Rotation Fields?

Load cases with different Rotation Fields can only be combined in GeniE if the Smart Load Combination option is On.

However, for some analyses the Smart Load Combination option must be off. In this case Sestra will not accept the load combination created by GeniE, because it has several BNACCLO cards for each node.

This can be overcome by creating the load combination in the Sestra input file itself using the cards SLCO, LCOM and optionally SCAL (if load factors are to be defined).

SESTRA (ALL VERSIONS): Printing springs reaction forces

SESTRA (ALL VERSIONS). If you want to print reaction forces in spring supports then you may need to use CPRI card in sestra input file. Please check for the proper entries in the sestra user manual.

SESTRA (ALL VERSIONS): Retracking one single sueprelement in heirarchy

SESTRA (ALL VERSIONS) If you want to retrack results for one superelement in the heirarchy then RETR card may look as follows, RETR 2. 2. 0. 0. 2. 1. For further explanation, please see the user manual.

Sestra (All) - DOFs fixed in Presel will not print out reaction forces

Applies to all versions

If a DOF is defined originally as super and changed into fixed inside Presel, the corresponding reaction force will not be printed out by Sestra in the .lis file or in the results files. Therefore, results presentation in GeniE or Xtract will not print reaction forces for this DOF. This force can be computed from the shear forces in the beam. Alternatively, defining this DOF as fixed originally will provide the reaction forces.

Sestra (Since version 8.5-01): How to avoid basic errors in tension/compression analysis.

1. Make sure all tension/compression concept elements are not divided into many FEM elements. 1 concept tension/compression beam should only consist of 1 FEM beam element.
   Expected error: TensionCompressionDriver.log will display:
   No truss elements have been assigned the Tension only or the Compression only beam type property - no analysis has been run.
2. Don't use 2nd order elements for analysis.
   Expected error: TensionCompressionDriver.log will display:
   No truss elements have been assigned the Tension only or the Compression only beam type property - no analysis has been run.
3. All load cases have to contain loading.
   Expected error: TensionCompressionDriver.log will display: Direct Accesss file TC_520131104_100759_R2.SIN was not found
   at DNVS.Sesam.SifFramework.IO.SifStreamFactory.OpenDirectAccess(String path, Boolean readOnly) at DNVS.Sesam.TensionCompression.Driver.Program.RunThroughResultFilesAndMerge(String masterSinFile, Dictionary`2 slaveFiles) at DNVS.Sesam.TensionCompression.Driver.Program.MergeTheResultFiles() at DNVS.Sesam.TensionCompression.Driver.Program.Main(String args) SIN file was not created for the specific load case, that does not contain any loading.
4. Included load cases needs to have the highest FEM load case numbers. Analysis will be Terminated. No file will be created.

Sestra 10 unexpected error message DNVS MoFa

During analysis of Sestra 10 program, sometimes it will report kind of error message starting with DNVS::MoFa . When this happens, it means an unexpected error occurs during analysis and together with model files, this error message should be reported to DNV support for further assistance.

sestra error during retracking

Dear Nanda, The reason seems to be your definition of pin-joints. In your file sestra-1.mnt the following message was written:

Record is already established. IDGR:BELFIX

This means that you have duplicated some definitions of flexible- or pin-joints in beams. The reason for this problem is probably that you have included the 'load' defining the 'Pin Joints' in more than one load case that you are writing to the T-file (in 'Analysis').

In Patran-Pre the 'Pin-Joints' are load case dependent, since Patran generally also shall be able to model nonlinear models. And in nonlinear analyses there may be different definition of 'Pin-Joints' in each load case. In the linear FEM analyses like Sestra, however, the stiffness matrix is equal for all load cases. Since the 'Pin-Joints' are modifying the stiffness matrix, it must be the same for all load cases.

Generally one may say that the boundary conditions and similar input (supernodes, MPC etc.) shall only be included in one of the load cases that are written to the T-file. Patran-Pre is usually able to not make any doublets for the boundary conditions, but it is not as clever for the 'Pin-Joints'. The solution should be to remove the Pin-joint 'load' from all but one load case.

Sestra: invalid map<K, T> key error message

This is an unexpected error in Sestra, so there is little or no detailed description to document. One possible reason that can cause this mapping error is normally due to the lack of system memory. Please try the below steps and see if it can make the analysis to run:  1- Turn off use of Sestra 10. This will make the program uses Sestra 8.8 for the analysis. The analysis time will be longer, but no memory issue and the error message (if any) will be clearer. In some cases, the error message will point out where the structure is not connected that could cause the mapping to fail.  2- Try to run the analysis with a computer with larger RAM memory and available hard drive space.  3- Increase the Windows paging file size (to the order of 64Gb), make sure plenty of hard drive space will be available during the analysis.  4- Also try to add a SOLV command in the Sestra input file when running Sestra 10. This command will allow the program to process less load cases per time into memory and set NUMLC = 10% of all load cases. This will reduce the usage of memory during the analysis.  If none of the above works, please: 

1. Send us the analysis model files and we will try to replicate the issue. 
2. Let us know the computer configuration (especially the RAM memory amount and Paging file size settings).

Sestra: Increase eigen solver convergence by specifying maximum number of iterations

Increase eigen solver convergence by specifying maximum number of iterations Sometimes, for dynamically not sound models, Sestra program may report an error message says the converged eigenvalue number is less than user required, as following, ERROR Execution failed! Eigensolver did not converge to within the desired tolerance. Maximum number of iterations reached. Only 37 eigenvalues converged to within specified tolerance 1e-07 (50 eigenvalues are requested). When this error occurs, increase the maximum number from the default 10 to 50 of Lanczos iterations will often get the problem solved, as following, PS. Notice that COMM needs to be removed for Sestra to read the EIGA command. All commands are described in the Sestra user manual.

SESTRA: Unable to find Sestra (32bit or 64 bit) in GeniE

Some users may experience this Warning!:

Unable to find Sestra (32bit or 64 bit) on location as defined in DNVS_ApplicationVersions.xml or on location SESAM_HOME in SESAM.INI

Could not read default version installation information for application Sestra from DNVS_ApplicationVersions.xml.

This problem should be resolved by installing Application Version Manager. You can use your Sesam DVD and install it from the Application Version Manager folder or, alternatively download it from Software Downloads in Customer Portal.

If you continue to get an error after this, first please ensure you have installed the latest version of Sestra from the Sesam DVD (located in folder Sestra or Sestra64).

Then, open GeniE, select File -> Set External applications and click Browse. Find the folder where Sestra is installed on your PC (typically it is located in C:\Program Files (x86)\DNVS\Sestra V8.4-04\bin) and select Sestra.exe.

SestraTri Criterion

GeniE reports on elements that does not satisfy these criteria. It prints a

warning message indicating element number and associated face, as

well as the failing value. Sestra will not accept those elements and the analysis

will not finish successfully.

For Triangles:

100*A - L 2 < 0

Where A is area, L is length of Longest edge

For Rectangles:

25*C - D < 0

Where C is the shortest diagnonal, D is the longest diagonal

SIMA: How to visualize models generated by Sesam-GeniE?

Follow the below steps to visualise models generated by Sesam-GeniE:

Open a model in GeniE.

Choose "File | Save Graphics As" and save file as a ply-file or obj-file.

Open Sima, read in a test case.

Expand "Model | Bodies" folder. Right click on a body, then choose the "Assign Body Geometry" option and locate the file generated in step 2. Open the file.

SPLICE (ALL versions from ALL): Pile head local forces mis-match

Applies from version ALL to version ALL

The following warning is shown in Splice.lis:

PILE HEAD LOCAL FORCES MIS-MATCH

There are multiple causes that may result in this error and hence multiple solutions:

1. If not done already, setting the pile to be infinite below a certain z-coordinate may solve this issue. This can be done via Edit > Properties > Pile Characteristics > Edit. The pile boundary condition can then be changed. The pile will still be analysed correctly in the axial direction. Only the torsional and lateral solutions are determined by assuming the pile to have an infinite length.

2. Alternatively, you may have defined very thin soil (sub)layers (e.g. 0.1 m thick (sub)layers when the pile to be analysed has a diameter of 2 m) or very thick soil (sub)layers. Removing these thin (sub)layers or adding more (sub)layers may be an additional step necessary to remove the warning in Splice.

For more information, see the GeniE User Manual Volume II, section 3.5.2 (Structure-Pile-Soil Modelling) and 3.5.3 (Structure-Pile-Soil Analysis).

Splice error message on displacement

Error message: Question: What does “10 pile cmn. Diameters” mean? What is “cmn” specifically? Answer: This is typical non-convergence error for Splice program. The program calculates the displacements from pile tip to pile head, and if the differences in each node does not satisfy the convergence requirement, the program will adjust the pile tip displacement and iterates again. The displacement printed in the error is just the value at final step and does not hold any real/physical meaning. To overcome this convergence issue, try:

Increase soil sublayers. This will add more soil layers. Define Properties > Pile Characteristic, to change "pile boundary condition" from "pile tip is free" to "the pile is assumed to be infinitely long beneath z= “and assign it to the piles.

The “cmn” does not have any meaning in the printed output. This was a misprint in splice listing files (identified as BUG 354472) and will be corrected in future version.

Splitting and Combining Workspaces in Sesam Wind Manager

In Sesam Wind Manager, you can run two or more workspaces at different PCs and combine them to get the report from all DLCs. However, as Sesam Wind Manager recognizes each analysis by their UniqueID, you must make sure they are consistent between workspaces. If you have not created the workspace yet, you can follow these steps:

Create and setup a new workspace with all the DLCs in one of the PCs

Save and copy the workspace into other PCs. As an example, we will run it in two workspaces, A and B. Each workspace can be in different PCs.

In each workspace, run different parts of the job. For example , first 3 DLCs in Workspace A, and remaining DLCs in Workspace B.

Observe that in both the workspace folder (File > Explore Current Workspace) you have the analysis folders (one for each DLC) .

Close workspace A Cop y the analysis folders in workspace B to workspace A. In this case, we want to combine workspace B into A (A as main).

. You will see other DLCs are now marked as completed.

After this, generate FLS or ULS result reports as you would do it normally to get maximum utilization between all combined DLCs.

If you already finished the job without preparing the workspace as shown above (i.e., you already have different workspaces with different DLCs), you need to follow these steps to make Sesam Wind Manager recognize the UniqueIDs of the DLCs:  

As an example, we have workspace A and workspace B as shown below . Both jobs are already completed separately.

Observe that in the workspace folder (File > Explore Current Workspace), in addition to the analysis folders, you also have an XML file. We will use this XML file to copy the UniqueIDs.

    3. Copy the analysis folders in workspace B to workspace A. In this case, we want to combine workspace B into A (A as main). 4. Open the XML files of workspace A and B in any text editor. It is better to close the workspaces first to avoid conflicts. 5. Copy the elements (data) between` <WaveWindCombination> and </WaveWindCombination> tags from Workspace B's XML to Workspace A's XML. This is the data of the Wave/Wind table's DLC in Sesam Wind Manager.   6. Save Workspace A's XML.   7. Open Workspace A in Sesam Wind Manager. If done correctly, you would see the finished DLCs from workspace B are copied to workspace A, including the results.   8. After this, it is the same as before.   Note:  You do not need to copy any R#.SIN file as they are not used for the report and can be quite large

Staad Pro import to GeniE

To convert Staad model to GeniE, you need to use Staad2Sesam application: This application will convert Staad file to .js file and user can import the .js file into GeniE. Below is the link to Staad2Sesam software:

Static accelerations/inertia loads are not applied on mass of matrix element, while total mass matrix is correct

When using external matrix (element), applying static acceleration/inertia loads are not applied on mass of matrix element, while total mass matrix is correct/accounted. As total mass is correct, the dynamic response will include effect of the mass of the matrix element, while static response does not.

This is intended behavior from Sestra 8.

There could be some possible workarounds for this, until Sestra implement new option for this.

One workaround is to apply loads through AMDLOAD (load of matrix element) cards, but calculating that for each load case / load step will be quite complex.

Another feasible workaround is to add equivalent point masses on connection locations for external matrix.

For example of below TP model, total mass and z-coordinate of COG is as below.

Mass : 152 tonne COG Z: 18.7681m

Then user can calculate point masses as below, to have equivalent mass & z COG.

Then replace mass information of global model

Define zero mass on external matrix And add point masses to have equivalent mass & COG

STOFAT: How is Stofat calculating stresses for fatigue calculation?

Stofat is based on the documentation in DNV Class Note 30.7 and DNV RP-C203. We recommend looking up these documents, in addition to the Stofat user manual.

In Stofat, the stresses are extrapolated from the user defined interpolation points to the hotspot, as given in the RP-C203 section 4.3.1, fig. 4-3.

Stofat will first interpolate the component stresses from the element stress points to the two user defined interpolation points. Next, the component stresses are extrapolated from the interpolation points to the hotspot, where the principal stresses are calculated. The principal stresses are used together with the wave spectra to calculate the respons spectra. Spectral moments are computed from the respons spectra. The stress ranges used in the fatigue calculation are computed based on the spectral moments. Stofat is not using equation 4.3.1 (in RP-C203) directly, but will use the principal stresses together with the 'Weld normal line' method, as shown in fig. 2-3 and 2-4 in the RP, to sort out the principal stresses parallel to a weld. When the main principal stress is within the sector defined by the weld normal line, it will be used. If the main principal stress is outside this sector, the damage is set to 0.

Stofat: Is there a thickness correction in solid elements?

No. The thickness correction is only done for 2D shell elements, not for 3D solid elements.

To do this for solid elements is too complex. The need of a thickness correction is not that important when using solid elements anyway. These elements may be used as a number of elements through the plate thickness, capable of describing the stress variation a lot better than the shell elements.

The thickness correction is used to adjust for a different stress variation through the plate thickness for thin plates as opposed to thick plates. This may influence the calculated damage. If solid elements are used with just one element through the plate thickness, a correction may still be needed. This can be included as a stress concentration factor (SCF).

Stofat: Long term fatigue calculations and Weibull distribution

CURRENTLY FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY.

Stofat may include calculation of Weibull parameters. It shold however be noted that the Weibull distribution is NOT used in the fatigue computation in Stofat. The long term distribution is taken from the scatter diagram and the long term probabilities for the wave directions. The total damage is a summation over all part damages calculated from the short term response for each sea state (cell) in the scatter diagram. Appendix C3 i the Stofat user manual explains the procedure, ending with "The damage is then summed over all sea states and over all wave directions." The DNV Class Note 30.7 is also a very useful document, serving as a background for the calculations in Stofat. This means that if you print all the part damages, the total damage can be calculated by summing these in e.g. Excel. The Weibull distribution is an additional benefit from Stofat. The Weibull parameters may be calculated by Stofat, and printed, to be used if a user wants to do a simplified long term calculation. In such a case, a Weibull distribution may be assumed instead of using the detailed scatter diagram etc. This simplified method is not part of Stofat, but is exaplined in the Class Note 30.7, section 4.3.

Stofat: What is the exceedence probability levels?

The commands DEFINE SHELL-FATIGUE-CONSTANTS EXCEEDENCE-PROBABILITY-LEVELS or DEFINE FATIGUE-RESULTS-DUMP EXCEEDENCE-PROBABILITY in Stofat are more or less doing the same thing, which is to define the number of stress exceedence levels that are to be included in the dump file from a certain fatigue run. The default amount of levels are set to 11, but this may be changed if neccesary. Below is an excerpt of a dumpfile (.pex) for a certain hotspot or element (294) with 15 exceedence levels (becomes 16 in reality since level 0 is included):

Stress range  
Exceedence probability
294 8 All 0 4.25488950E+06 1.94639291E-08
294 8 All 1 4.09540550E+06 6.57393002E-08
294 8 All 2 3.80287650E+06 5.52219262E-07
294 8 All 3 3.51034725E+06 3.98817792E-06
294 8 All 4 3.21781850E+06 2.47715889E-05
294 8 All 5 2.92528950E+06 1.32427696E-04
294 8 All 6 2.63276050E+06 6.09929557E-04
294 8 All 7 2.34023150E+06 2.42231088E-03
294 8 All 8 2.04770262E+06 8.29821639E-03
294 8 All 9 1.75517362E+06 2.45170034E-02
294 8 All 10 1.46264475E+06 6.24469407E-02
294 8 All 11 1.17011588E+06 1.37006059E-01
294 8 All 12 8.77586875E+05 2.57967234E-01
294 8 All 13 5.85057938E+05 4.12830949E-01
294 8 All 14 2.92528969E+05 5.52937984E-01
294 8 All 15 0.00000000E+00 6.10746741E-01

Notice the significant change in exceedence stress range probability between the levels. If both these commands are used, the command with the highest exccedence level will be the active one. Please also have a look at chapter 2.7 in the user manual for more info about the dump file, and also try the commands in Stofat to look at the actual results.

Stofat: What is the number in the FILE TRANSFER command?

The number used in the FILE TRANSFER command is the  superelement identification  KEY number, not the superelement number. This KEY number is defined by the sequence of assembling superelements in Presel.

When running Stofat interactively, a table showing the connection between the superelement type number (T#.FEM) and the key number is displayed.

From the Prepost user manual:

A superelement identification key is simply an integer number in the range 1 to number

of 1st level superelements, numbered from left to right in the superelement tree.

PREPOST will present a list showing the available superelements and their

corresponding keys.

Submod (All Versions): Why does Submod say that it is not possible to find a node?

The following message may be written to the file Submod.mlg, and may happen when Submod is trying to match the defined boundary nodes in the submodel with the global model.

*** ERROR RETURN FROM XHZ230 *** ERROR FLAG =-100 NOT POSSIBLE TO FIND XI, ET AND ZE. VALUES NOT CONVERGING. XI,ET,ZE: 1.08290E+00 5.50330E-01 8.79095E-14 FOR POINT WITH COORDINATES X,Y AND Z: 2.36000E+01 -2.70000E+01 1.38000E+01 IF NODE IS FOUND LATER IN ANOTHER ELEMENT, DISREGARD THIS ERROR MESSAGE

The message is an early warning, saying that so far, searching in a specific element, Submod has not found the node in question. If you later find that all nodes are indeed matching, the execution should be okay:

       Number of matching coupling-nodes ........:    411        Number of non-matching coupling-nodes .:        0

  Of course, you should always check the deformation plot of the sub-model, for example in Xtract. The deformation on the boundary of the sub-model should match the deformation of the global model in the same area.

To force Sestra10 run in Sesam Manager

To force the new Sestra 10 to run the new solver, a /dsf switch is required.  

If running the analysis from Sesam Manager, then need to add the /dsf switch to the additional argument field,

Or if running the analysis from command prompt, then the /dsf switch should directly follow the Sestra.exe command,

Tutorial for gas fuelled container ship with independent tank

This tutorial’s objective is to provide the user guidance on how to run gas fuel tank finite element analysis on a container ship with Type-B gas fuel arrangement as required by DNV Rules Pt.5 Ch.2 Sec.6 4. The focus is to give a description on how to:

model the interaction between the independent tank and the supporting hull (section 2 Cargo hold FE model – Modelling); create Rule-defined loading conditions in Nauticus Hull and import those to GeniE (section 3 Cargo hold FE model – Apply Rule Loads); and run the analysis and inspect the force interaction in the supports (section 4 Cargo hold FE model – Run Analysis)

A demo showing the main steps mentioned above can be found here: For a more general description on modelling of container ship structures, please refer to another tutorial: In Section 5 FE Fatigue assessment we describe, for typical fatigue details, how to refine the mesh in the cargo hold model to txt mesh size, how to apply fatigue loading conditions, and how to run FE fatigue strength assessment. A demo showing the main steps for FE fatigue assessment can be found here: In Section 6 Local Strength of vertical tank supports we describe how to use sub modelling technique to run local strength assessment, using 50x50 mm mesh, how to automatically transfer loads from the cargo hold model to the sub model, and how to run the analysis. A demo showing the main steps for local strength assessments by use of sub-modelling technique can be found here: The tutorial can be found here: Link to model files with workspaces:

Usfos - User being prompted insufficient license as below

Error message: User being prompted insufficient license as below Question:  Does insufficient license error means that the license is not valid or program can’t fetch the license file? Answer: This is not a license error. Instead, this is installation error where the user installed Usfos version from and not using DNV version for Usfos. Usfos license file only works with DNV installation files. Solution to this:

• Uninstall the Usfos version
• Download Usfos installation file
• Unzip the file and use setup.exe to install the program
• Launch Usfos

Usfos (8.6 to all) - Error in Pro_Illegal

Starting from Usfos 8.6, more strict checks on the finite element model are performed. If elements do not pass this check then the analysis will stop and the error message "Error in Pro_Illegal" will be printed.

Version 8.6 performs the following checks:

• Element length to diameter ratio cannot be less than 0.5 in standard beam element.
• Beam eccentricity (e1+e2) to length ratio cannot be higher than 0.5.
• Soil layer thickness to pile diameter ration cannot be lower than 1.

Version 8.7 and following perform the previous checks and also:

• Shell element angle cannot be smaller than 10°.

The elements that fail these criteria will be printed in the "out" file. Also, label files will be written to highlight the illegal elements in Xact.

To allow some or all elements to comply with less strict cirteria, the user can add the Illegal command in the control file to that effect. More information can be found on the release notes of Usfos 8.6 and 8.7. Please see the attached document . Please see the attached document .

USFOS (ALL VERSIONS): Axial Stress-Results attribute

All Usfos Versions: The Axial stress is a linear combination of contribution from Bending moments and Axial forces.    Note that these stresses are valid for elastic responses, (uses linear stress distribution).

USFOS (ALL VERSIONS): Checking soft connections or disconnected members

All Usfos Versions: Sometimes due to modelling mistakes, members may not be connected properly or the connection is too soft. Its recomended that user run an eigenvalue analysis for such model which will help in detecting the problematic locations in the model.

USFOS (ALL VERSIONS): Model Exporting from GeniE to Usfos: Short Elements

From Usfos Version 8.6 and above, Usfos will not accept elements shorter than L/D<0.5. Here L is the length of the element and D is the diameter of the cross-section. Usfos can accept these short elements at user' own risk by including 'Illegal' card. To check the distance between the nodes in GeniE, please click on Tools> Analsyis> Locate FE. Rest of the steps are shown in the attached image.  Please see the attached document .

USFOS (ALL VERSIONS): Running Usfos in batch mode

Attached folder contains a model file and two different runs are done for waves in different directions. Wave-loads are computed by Wajac. You many need to make some chages in the wave1.inp and wave2.inp by changing the drive locations.  Please see the attached document .

Usfos (All Versions): Struman prints warning "Your Licence Expired X days ago"

Struman will print a warning stating that the user license has expired.

This is a fake warning! and Struman will work regardless of the printed warning.

Struman needs a separate license file from Usfos to work, but will not fail if the date of this license file has expired. Please see the attached document .

Usfos lacks license to run a command

There are features in Usfos which are locked from usage as they are mainly used for development work .

Unfortunately some of these features are described in the user Manual without any reference to the fact that they are locked from the user.

This is not locked by DNV, nor are there aditional modules that can be bought from DNV to give access to these features.

The known commands without user access are:

General - CompSpri and TensSpri options
Subshell
Windhist
APPI_soil - cyclic option

Notice that from Usfos 8.8 it is possible to use the Subshell command with the 'dumpfem' option. See the attached release notes for more details.

USFOS: Error message prompt to contact support@usfos.com

When the error message prompt you to contact "support@usfos.com" , this indicated that you're not installed USFOS from DNV installation file. Hence please uninstall USFOS and download USFOS from DNV. After completely downloading the file > Unzip > Open the folder and double click  setup.exe  to install

Wadam/Sestra: Mass information has to exist in structure model for load transfer and later strength analysis

If you want to do load transfer in HydroD and strength analysis in Sestra, mass information has to exist in your structure model.

For the mass related issues, Wadam/HydroD will calculate inertial loads from the mass information. These loads will contribute to calculation of the global forces and motions.

Also the accelerations will be transferred into Sestra. When you do the structure analysis, Sestra will only use the acceleration load from Wadam and the mass from the structure model to add gravity effect. So, your structure model should have mass information, similar to the mass input in HydroD/Wadam.

Wadam: How are not-flat elements handled in a panel model

All panels in a Wadam analysis are adapted to be flat panels. For both lower and higher order shell and solid elements, Wadam will adjust the nodes into a flat , 3 or 4 noded, panel. This also when there is an out-of-plane issue with the lower order elements. This means that the normal vector of the panel may be different from the original normal vector of the element, which again can be an issue for example in the use of tolerances in a Wadam load transfer analysis. Wadam will use the definition of the wet surface, or dummy hydro pressure, in load case 1, for both shell and solid elements, to select the panels. This is described in more detail in the Wadam user manual, section 2.1.2.

After a Wadam analysis, there will be a file called panelT1.fem in the Wadam run folder. This is the actual panel model used in the calculations, after Wadam has handled the original panel model, including any cutting of the model at the water line etc. This model can be displayed in for example Xtract, as verification.

Wadam: How to interpret the printed balance of mass and buoyancy in section 2.7 in Wadam.lis?

First, the vertical tolerance is given in HydroD, relative to the characteristic length. Wadam will stop if the tolerances are exceeded.

Any imbalance between mass and buoyancy will be printed as a vertical resultant force (F3), and as a distance/translation in length unit, at the bottom of section 2.7 in Wadam.lis. The translation is for information only, no translation will be performed by Wadam. A distance of for example 0.5 means that the vessel should be translated up by 0.5 length units to achieve perfect balance.

The individual values for mass and buoyancy are printed in the same section.

Notice that the resulting force in a following structural analysis in Sestra may differ from the results in Wadam. This is mainly because of potential differences in the normal vectors of the models, due to different mesh of the panel model and the structural model. Differences in the mass distribution between the mass used in HydroD/Wadam and the mass of the structural model are also important.

Wadam: How to solve error from drift force calculation with pressure integration?

When drift forces from all degrees of freedom is wanted, the pressure integration method is used. This puts more strict requirements to the mesh of the panel model, especially at the waterline. (The alternative is to calculate only the horizontal drift forces.)

If Wadam stops, you may see the following message in the file poten.log:

Error in evaluating Rankine matrix

If this is the case, please inspect the panel model closely, with respect to the waterline. Avoid defining the waterline just above the element borders of the model, as Wadam will cut the panel model at the waterline. This may result in tiny and badly shaped elements.

It is most useful to check the file panelT1.FEM, created by Wadam (found in the Wadam run folder). This is the panel model actually used in the calculations, after being cut at the waterline (and at the sea bed).

It may be useful to put on the element labels, to more clearly view any small elements at the waterline. An example from Xtract is shown in the attachment, where some additional element labels are shown above the main ones. Please see the attached document .

WADAM: Load transfer analysis with NO MATCH written in Wadam.lis.

Problems with NO MATCH' stated in Wadam.lis for a load transfer analysis should in general be inspected. This means that the listed elements (in the structure model) will have no wave pressure in the structural analysis, and subsequently problems with lower accuracy and increased reaction forces may occur. Local results at these elements will also be affected.

A good way of checking this issue is to plot the pressures in Xtract, from reading the T#.FEM file for the structural model (the L#.FEM file will be read automatically). Elements without pressure will show up as grey elements, without colour contours, when the pressures are displayed.

A work around may be to increase the load transfer tolerances defined in HydroD. If this is not sufficient, the panel model and structural model should be inspected. If there are only a few of these elements, the message can normally be neglected.  

Notice that this may also indicate that the definition of the wet surfaces (dummy hydro pressure) in the structure model is not correct. Wadam will find all such elements defined in load case 1, both on the outside and inside of the model.  

Example:

      * 2023                   NO MATCH   (24, 1, 0)

     ** A TOTAL OF   29 LEGAL ELEMENTS IN ACTUAL OCCURENCE NO.       2        OF SUPERELEMENT TYPE      23 DID NOT MATCH!

The numbers in the brackets, (24, 1, 0), indicate that Wadam will search up to 25 panels to find one that can match with the structural element. The load transfer tolerances are used, out of plane/distance and normal vector angle, (dist, ang, 0).

Wajac – What are ILLEGAL ELEMENTS

Question: When running the model, WAJAC produces the warning below. How to identify the illegal elements so that you can decide whether this issue needs corrected

Answers:

This warning indicates that there are illegal elements in the model, which will lead to the reported structure mass in " W E I G H T   A N D   B U O Y A N C Y   S U M M A R Y" is incorrect as they are not counted in the mass calculation.

Please notice that only beam type BEAS is supported by Wajac. So any other beam type like truss elements (TESS), second order beam elements (BTSS) will be issued as illegal elements.

WAJAC (ALL versions) Hydrodynamic results file generations takes too long

WAJAC(ALL VERSIONS) If you are running wajac and it takes hours in finishing while generating hydrodynamic results file G1.SIU then please check as follows, There may be a wrong entry on OPTI card. If you change OPT3 option from 3 to 2 then it will work fine. Please make sure that all the entries are at correct positions. For spacings, please see user manual.  OPTI 0. 0. 2. 0. 0. 0. 0.  0.

WAJAC (ALL versions): Waveloads and Buoyancy including eccentricities

(WAJAC: All versions) The OPT8 under the OPTI command governs the consideration of element eccentricities in load calculation. It applie to both wave and buoyancy calculation.  If OPT8 = 0 or blank, eccentricities will be taken into account for calculations of both wave & buoyancy load, and if OPT8 = 1, eccentricities will not be considered in both wave and buoyancy calculations.

WAJAC (ALL versions): Wind loads without wave loads

WAJAC (ALL versions): If you want to compute only wind loads on the structure then you have to use a dummy wave load condition with it in GeniE. This is a limitation. Dummy wave load condition might have calm sea condition, buoyancy may optionally be switched off.

WAJAC (ALL VERSIONS)Hydrodynamic added mass in eigenvalue analysis run

Create a dummy loadcase with fem loadcase number 11. Now create dummy waveload condition and add wajac activity to the analysis. Select Added mass and dampling tab for calculation and click Apply. Now waveload case has fem number 12. 1 to 10 are the eigenmodes.

WAJAC (All) - Marine Growth Weight and Buoyancy always on

Applies to all versions.

When defining a loadcase with sea water level and Marine Growth, the vertical load due to Marine Growth is always the vectorial sum of its weight and buoyancy. This is independent of turning on or off the buoyancy calculation and only applies to the amount of Marine Growth that is submerged. All other Marine Growth is neglected.

WAJAC (V6.2-01 from ALL): Error in Dean Stream function seastate parameters

For Dean Stream function theory to be used for computation of wave kinematics, the three errors which are computed should sum up to higher than 0.0001, if less than 0.0001 then we get error for this wave theory. Below is a link which has a flash window for inputting the sea state parameters. After you click on 'calculate', the errors are listed to the left side in a window, the three errors are Wave Height Error: Mean Sea Level Error: Bernoulli RMS Error: Sum of these three errors should be higher than 0.0001. http://www.coastal.udel.edu/faculty/rad/streamless.html

WAJAC (V6.2-01 from ALL):Height of breaking wave

print in Wajac .lis file: Error: The wave height is exceeding the breaking wave height Height of breaking wave is computed using the following equation: Hb = 0.142 * L where L is the wave length and Hb is height of breaking wave L = (g* T^2)/(2*pi); If you are using any other theory than Airy wave theory, Wajac will still consider wavelength computed by Airy wave theory. Rest of the calculations will be based on actual wave-length computed by relevant selected wave theory but only the comparison for height of breaking wave is done on the basis of airy wave theory wave-length. This will be corrected in the future versions.

Wajac: Dean Stream function....Current

The implementation of Dean Stream Function is according to Dean, R.G.: Stream Function Representation of Nonlinear Ocean Waves, Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 70. No. 18, 1965 Dean, R.G.: Relative Validities of Water Wave Theories, Journal of the Waterways and Harbours Division, ASCE, 1970 as given in the reference list of SESAM:WAJAC. There is also a very nice web calculator for stream function wave kinematics developed by Professor Dean at Univ of Delaware,

WAJAC: Hydrodynamic coefficients have not been specified by the Wajac analysis control data.

Wajac can give the following Warning saying that hydrodynamic coefficients have not been specified by the Wajac analysis control data. 

    *** WARNING: HYDRODYNAMIC COEFFICIENTS HAVE NOT BEEN SPECIFIED BY THE WAJAC ANALYSIS

        CONTROL DATA. ENSURE THAT THE COEFFICIENTS ARE SPECIFIED ON THE SESAM INTERFACE FILE *** 

This warning means that you did not specify a hydrodynamic coefficient in the Wajac input file manually. However, an easier way in most cases is to specify those coefficients directly in GeniE, so that hydro coefficients are included in the *T.FEM file.

Both ways are correct, but if you choose to use GeniE to specify coefficients, it will give you the warning mentioned above.

Why is there a mismatch between the loads reported in Wajac.lis and Sestra.lis?

In some cases, the wave loads reported in Wajac.lis might not match those in Sestra.lis. An obvious reason can be errors in the load transfer, but another reason which is not related to an error is the following. The cause of the difference between Wajac and Sestra can be due to non-zero Cdx and/or Cmx components (drag and inertia coefficient along the member) specified in the Morison coefficients in the model. Wajac will use the Cdx and Cmx components to calculate the loading on the model, and will find the overturning moment and base shear including these loads. However, the loads are only used by Wajac to compute the overturning moment and base shear. As such, these values are correct and the correct phase angle is found for the wave loads. The wave loads for those phase angles are then used in Sestra, but without the Cdx and Cmx components of the load. These are only used to find the overturning moment and base shear and will not be used in the structural analysis afterwards. If the Cdx and Cmx components of the Morison coefficients are set to zero, the values in Wajac.lis and Sestra.lis will be the same. Otherwise, the values in Wajac will be different due to the added Cdx and Cmx component used for the Wajac determination of the phase angles of maximum overturning moment and base shear. Hence, adjusting the Cdx and Cmx values to 0, which is how Sestra gets the loads from Wajac, makes Wajac and Sestra report the same. Note that the main difference is that in the case the Cdx and Cmx are not equal to zero, the phase angle found at which the maximum base shear occurs may change compared to when Cdx=0 and Cmx=0.

WindExtension (1.0-01): Limitation due to memory allocation in SESTRA .

Applies only to version 1.0-01 Use SESTRA Version 8.4.5 or higher to avoid possible memory problems.

WindExtension (2.0-662 from 1.0-01): Limitation due to memory allocation in SESTRA .

Applies from version 1.0-01 to version 2.0-662 Use SESTRA Version 8.4.5 or higher to avoid possible memory problems.

WindExtension (2.0-662 from 2.0-660): Limitation due to pile/soil analysis in Framework .

Applies from version 2.0-660 to version 2.0-662 Use Framework Version 3.6.6 or higher when including pile/soil in the Sesam Wind analysis.

WindExtension (2.0-662): Splice does only support up to 5000 load cases

Applies only to version 2.0-662 If the simulation time multiplied by the time-step of the wave/wind combination exeeds 5000. (e.g. 600sec * 0.1sec > 50000), splice will return with an error message.

Xtract (4.1-02 ): Combine/Scan dialogs don't open for Element average results

From version: 4.1-02 To version: ALL

After selecting any component of any attribute in position Element average the Scan and Combine dialogs don't open.   In case of Combine workaround is: Select any component of any attribute other than Element average. Open combine dialog. Select desired Element average component.   In case of scan workaround is: (Workaround described for combine does not work since the component currently selected when opening the scan dialog is the one to be scanned and this cannot be changed.) Workaround is to paste in a command or read a command input file.

Note: The link below from status list also include the same information.

XTRACT (4.1-02): Why is the Models, Results and or Sets tab not shown?

Symptoms: One, more or all of the tabs on the left hand side may be hidden after  opening a model in Xtract. Cause: The tabs can be hidden/closed by pressing on the red 'x' (close) button in the top right of the tab. This will take away the tab from the view. Solution: To get back all tabs, go to the Window-menu and click Database. This will hide all tabs. After this, go to the Window-menu again and click Database again. This will show all tabs again, including the ones that were hidden earlier.

Xtract (All Versions to ALL): abrupt changes in deformation plots

The issue may be 'complex evaluation' in Xtract. When Xtract presents a wave represented as a complex load case you have to specify the phase of the wave. Here Xtract has several options;

True minimum

True maximum

Absolute minimum

Absolute maximum

Phase

Default when you make a combination with a complex load case is absolute max. This means that Xtract will find the phase that gives absolute max length of the displacement vector at all nodal points (for result selection DISPLACEMENTS ALL) The phase giving absolute max may vary from node to node and hence there is no continuity in the displacement plot for such a combination. To get a plot that is easier to grasp you may make a combination where all the nodal results are for the same phase of the wave. This means making a combination with the Phase e.g. 0 deg. The phase is the third parameter in the combine command or you select it in the combine dialogue. In your case:

combine "amec-combination-input" max "Nodes" "Displacement" "ALL" "1" "29" "1" 1.3 "1" "31" "1" 1.3 "1" "32" "1" 1.3 "1" "33" "1" 1.3 "1" "2" "1" 0.7
combine "amec-combination-input" 0 "Nodes" "Displacement" "ALL" "1" "29" "1" 1.3 "1" "31" "1" 1.3 "1" "32" "1" 1.3 "1" "33" "1" 1.3 "1" "2" "1" 0.7

The fact that Xtract evaluates the results node by node may be confusing because the results may not be comparable from one node to the next. On the other hand the absolute max value for each node is often what you are after..

Xtract (All) - Material properties of boundary conditions are displayed

Applies to all versions

When color coding material properties, if the model has spring boundary conditions, each spring will be color coded and displayed in the legend.

Xtract: Combination of Individual Result Cases and Plots

It is possible in Xtract to combine the results for different stress results for a single loadcase.

Say you want to determine the principle stress range of P1 and P2 for a single loadcase. 

Plot P1

Results-Scan - Maximum, give it a name

Plot P2

Results - Scan - Minimum, give it a name

then you can combine results through Results - Combine - P1scan and P2scan with a factor if you like.

Also useful for calculating different variations of the VM stress, some codes specify the VM stress calculation, and doing any other general combination or math on an individual result.

XTRACT: Error opening Xtract.MLG when starting Xtract

When Xtract opens through “Start > All Programs > DNV Software > Applications > Xtract V4.1-02” then Xtract will open a log file (Xtract.jnl) plus some other working files in the location specified in the "Start in" field of the Xtract shortcut. By default, the "Start in" is C:\Users\<user account>\Xtract\.

If you do not have write access to this "Start in" folder, then Xtract will not start, but instead report two error messages:

 "Error opening Xtract.MLG" followed by "OPERATING SYSTEM MESSAGE NO.: 9"

Please check whether you can access the folder defined in "Start in" (use Right click, Properties to view "Start in) and that you have write privileges to it.

If you get these two error messages when you start Xtract, please change to a different folder you have write access to, i.e. %temp% (your default temporary folder). 

Note: when you open Xtract from GeniE, Sesam Manager or any other program, then the log file will be opened from the folder where the results file, opened by Xtract, is found and Xtract will not report this error.

Xtract: How to select and save to file result case or component using line-mode commands?

Here are some proper variants of the command after having selected an attribute by the “result select ...” command:

result save "C:\Temp\Table1.txt" coords components resultcases – saves all components for all resultcases and including coordinates for the current attribute

result save "C:\Temp\Table2.txt" components resultcases – saves all components for all resultcases for the current attribute

result save "C:\Temp\Table3.txt" coords components  – saves all components including coordinates for the current attribute

result save "C:\Temp\Table4.txt" coords – saves current component of the current attribute including coordinates

“ccords”, “components” and “resultcases” are keywords and not parameters. The manual says page 5-2:

• Commands (keywords and parameter words) are in the command description written in normal font while parameters that can take different values are written in italic font.

• Brackets are used for optional input: text

XTRACT: 'Unable to start Xtract'

This message may appear when, for example, GeniE or DeepC is trying to start Xtract.

Please check if Xtract is installed on your computer. The default installation path is Files (x86)\DNVS\Xtract\Bin and C:\Program Files\DNVS\Xtract\Bin depending on your Operating System version. If it’s not there, then please download it.

Also, please make sure that you install Application version manager (AVM) on your computer which helps programs to locate the .exe files.