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Marc®®2017

Marc and Mentat® 2017

Release Guide
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MA*V2017*Z*Z*DC-REL
Contents
Marc and Mentat 2017 Release Guide

Contents

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Color Association with Contact Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Improved Contact Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Thermally Driven Contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11


Breaking glue driven by temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Bonding driven by Temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Material Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Material Data Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Improved Damage modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Geometry Modeling and CAD Licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

CAD - Finite Element Mesh Association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Pyramid Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Piezoelectric Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Mentat Undo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Global Adaptive Meshing Enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Multi-Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Solver Enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Post Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Post File Revision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

List of Known Defects in the 2017 Release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54


Marc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Mentat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

List of Defects Corrected in the 2017 Release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59


Marc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4 Contents

Mentat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

List of Build and Supported Platforms - Marc 2017 Release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71


Marc Platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Mentat Platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Mentat Graphic Card Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Peripheral Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Security Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Mentat License Surrender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74


Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 5
Overview

Overview
The Marc 2017 Release provides improvements in ease-of-use, contact, material modeling, element technology, global
adaptive meshing and performance. This allows solution to your engineering models with greater accuracy leading to
better design.

Color Association with Contact Bodies


It has been found that color association is very important to improve productivity. Previously when using Mentat the
colors used for identification changed based upon which group of elements or contact bodies were made visible (i.e.
displayed). In the Marc 2017 Release, the color of the contact bodies remains fixed. The colors of these bodies are used
in other contact options as well. Also, when viewing the results the colors associated with contact bodies are retained.
For example, consider the model of a landing gear door having 41 contact bodies shown below. Previously if one
selected particular bodies to be displayed, the colors would change. As can be seen below, the colors of the selected
ribs, skin and lugs now remain the same.

If not defined, the colors will be automatically assigned in the order that the bodies have been read in or created. You
can define your own colors using the menu below.
6 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Color Association with Contact Bodies

These colors are also shown on the Properties of each contact body and on the Contact Table. This is very useful for
assembly models like the automotive model shown below, when the number of bodies is greater than 15, and one needs
to scroll through the table.

Additionally, the post file is enhanced with the feature that allows you to filter based on the geometric and material
property types being on the post file. You can e.g. select elements by geometric property, material property or contact
body while viewing the results.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 7
Improved Contact Output

Improved Contact Output


Three enhancements have been made to obtain better contact information. The first provides additional information on
body interaction. This provides the force and moment transmitted between the two bodies, thermal flux between bodies
and the area of contact. This is very useful to identify the load paths in the system. This works for both node-to-
segment and segment-to-segment contact. The contact area and flux are only available for the segment-to-segment
option. One can obtain a history plot of all of the contact interaction quantities. The contact interaction results also
appear in the output file, which can be controlled by the PRINT CONTACT option.
Second, a new global quantity has been defined that can be used to quickly access whether two bodies are in contact.
It checks to determine if any node (NTS) or segment (STS) is in contact for a given contact pair. The value is zero,
unless a node or segment is in either near contact (value is 0.5), touching contact (value is 1.0), glued contact (value is
1.5) or has constraints due to cyclic symmetry (value is 2.0).
Third, the interaction force may be displaced in a Model display. In the Contact Interaction menu under Contact Table,
the nodes where the interaction forces/ fluxes are plotted can be specified. These nodes should be nodes associated
with the deformable bodies to see the interaction forces as the bodies move. Note one must add the Contact Interaction
vectors to the post file.
For example, volume E problem e8x65 has been modified as below:

Displaying the Interaction Normal force at the end of the simulation one obtains
8 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Improved Contact Output

One can use the History Plot option to see how the interaction quantities vary with time as shown below. Note it is not
necessary to specify any additional nodes, this will automatically be available.

For segment-to-segment contact, one can obtain the contact area between the bodies in contact as shown below.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 9
Improved Contact Output

The transmission of the flux between contact bodies is examined in a thermal mechanically coupled analysis. Marc
Volume E problem e8x13 is modified to use segment-to-segment contact.
10 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Improved Contact Output

Initial Model Plastic Strains Temperatures

One easily observes the flux flow between the bodies.


Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 11
Thermally Driven Contact

The PRINT option can provide additional information about the contact process information in the output file. In the
previous releases you did not have any control over which regions or load cases it was active. This often resulted in
massive amounts of output, which made it difficult to focus on the critical information. This may now be controlled
by the PRINT CONTACT and PRINT NODE option.

As an example see Volume E, problem e8.124.

Thermally Driven Contact


In Marc 2017, a new capability has been introduced which allows the contact behavior to change from touching contact
to glued contact, or vice-a-versa, based upon a critical temperature.
Two capabilities are possible:
1. Breaking glue driven by temperature: above a certain threshold temperature, glued contact is broken.
2. Bonding driven by temperature: above a threshold temperature, touching contact becomes glued contact.
The temperature considered to trigger these interaction changes (breaking or bonding) is an input quantity and the
change in the contact condition is triggered if the average temperature in the contact area fulfills the criterion.
12 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Thermally Driven Contact

Breaking glue driven by temperature


When the temperature of the contact node or segment (i.e. the average temperature of the node (or segment point) and
its projection point on the contacted body) exceeds the breaking temperature Tbreak, the contact status switches from
glued contact to touching contact. In a currently active load case, this change in contact status is irreversible; if the
temperature in the contact area will decrease and become smaller than the threshold value, contact will remain touching
contact. The figures below illustrate this behavior.
.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 13
Thermally Driven Contact

Bonding driven by Temperature


When the temperature of the contact node or segment (i.e. the average temperature of the node (or segment point) and
its projection point on the contacted body) exceeds the bonding temperature Tbond, the contact status switches from
touching contact to glued contact. In a currently active load case, this change in contact status is irreversible; if the
temperature in the contact area will decrease and become smaller than the threshold value, contact will remain glued
contact. The figures below illustrate this behavior.
14 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Thermally Driven Contact
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 15
Thermally Driven Contact

In the following example, which has the same geometry as e8x65, the upper piece first sticks (is glued) to the middle
piece until a critical temperature is reached. At this point the glue contact condition breaks and conventional contact
occurs. This occurs over a couple of increments.

As an additional example where bonding occurs, see Volume E, problem e8.95, where two plates are welded together.
Initially they are in conventional touching contact, but then because of the high temperatures, they are considered to
be in glued contact. During the operation we observe a progression of the contact status:
16 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Material Behavior

As discussed before, in the Marc 2017 release the contact status on the post file can have the following values:

Contact Status Meaning


0 No contact
0.5 Near Thermal Contact
1.0 Conventional (Touching) Contact
1.5 Glued Contact
2.0 Cyclic Symmetry Contact

Material Behavior
The material data fitting capability in Mentat has been enhanced to support the following material models:
1. Barlat anisotropic yield surfaces 2-D and 3-D. A distinction is made between the 2-D plane stress case and the
full 3-D case as the 2-D plane stress case usually requires less material parameters. The measured data used in
this type of data fitting consists of initial yield stress data under different loading conditions like uniaxial
tension or compression, equibiaxial tension or compression, general biaxial tension or compression, shear and
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 17
Material Behavior

general 2-D plane stress states. Furthermore it is possible to include uniaxial R-values, uniaxial-values and
equibiaxial R-values, which are defined as ratios of certain plastic strain rates upon initial yielding measured in
local directions of test specimens. All this data can be supplied for different orientations of the test specimen
w.r.t. the principal directions of material anisotropy. The Barlat yield surfaces supported are:
a. yld91
b. yld2004-18p
c. yld2004-13p
2. Hill anisotropic yield surface 2D and 3D. The measured data used is the same as for the Barlat yield surfaces.
3. Various flow stress models incorporating dependence on equivalent plastic strain, equivalent plastic strain rate
and temperature. The measured data for this type of data fitting consists of true stress vs. true plastic strain
curves measured at different loading rates (i.e. plastic strain rates) and different temperatures. The flow stress
models supported are:
a. Power law model
b. Rate power law model
c. Johnson-Cook model
d. Kumar model
e. GMT-0 model
f. GMT-1 model
g. GMT-2 model
h. Hockett-Sherby model
4. Multi-network model (Parallel Rheological Framework) with viscoelastic and plastic networks, possibly
combined with damage. The measured data for this type of data fitting consists of cyclic stress and strain
histories that were measured at different loading rates. The tests must be displacement (i.e. strain) driven. The
loading rates in each test do not necessarily have to be constant, so it is possible to use data with strain holds,
where the strain is held constant for a period of time allowing the stress to relax. The type of tests supported are
uniaxial tension or compression and equibiaxial tension or compression. The different effects can be modeled
by a number of networks in parallel and these networks can be of the following:
a. Primary elastic network can be one of following
i. Any generalized Mooney
ii. Ogden
iii. Arruda-Boyce
iv. Gent
b. Secondary viscoelastic networks can be one of following
i. Arruda-Boyce elastic element in series with B&B viscous element
c. Secondary plasticity networks are characterized by
i. Arruda-Boyce or Ogden elasticity
ii. A yield stress
18 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Material Behavior

iii. A constant hardening slope


iv. A kinematic hardening fraction factor for combined kinematic/isotropic hardening (between 0 and 1,
0=pure isotropic hardening, 1=pure kinematic hardening)
The user may choose the hardening model as
i. No hardening (i.e. ideal plasticity)
ii. Isotropic hardening
iii. Kinematic hardening
iv. Combined hardening (default)
d. Incorporate rubber damage, which only affects the elasticity of the primary network and can be one of the
following
i. Mullin's discontinuous damage
ii. Miehe’s continuous damage
iii. Discontinuous and continuous damage (additive formulation)
iv. Discontinuous and continuous damage (multiplicative formulation)
In the example below a stress-strain data was read in, and was then fit using the Hocket- Sherby model.

In another example, the raw data is the stress strain data at 61 values of the equivalent plastic strains, 5 strain rates and
at 5 temperatures or a total of 1525 data points.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 19
Material Behavior

One observes that the data is not regular. The data is fit to the Johnson-Cook flow stress model.

To see how effective this is, a single curve is shown as well.


20 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Material Behavior

When creating ragged tables for flow stress calculations, the independent variables may be equivalent plastic strain,
equivalent plastic strain rate and/or temperature. Note that if no data is given for the equivalent plastic strain rate, one
cannot fit models like the Rate Power Law and this box is grayed out.
The figure below shows the results of a material data fit for the parameters of a Barlat Yld2004-18p anisotropic yield
surface. It shows the 2-D plane stress contour plots that display the two normalized direct stresses at constant values
of a normalized shear stress thus representing general 2-D plane stress states at all different orientations in a metal
sheet. The normalization is carried out with the nominal yield stress which is reported in the plot. The maximum
normalized shear stress (achieved when the direct stresses are both zero) is also reported in the plot. The details of this
data fit are described in the Mentat User's Guide: Problem 120 - “Experimental Data Fit of Barlat Yld2004-18p Yield
Surface Data”.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 21
Material Behavior

The Parallel Rheological Network was introduced in the Marc 2015 and is effective to represent materials that have
large strain elasticity, rate effects, residual (permanent strain) and potentially damage. These models are appropriate
for rubber and thermoplastics, but obtaining the material coefficients was difficult. To use this method one performs
cyclic loading, and record the strain and the stress as a function of the time. One has tremendous flexibility in driving
the model, in particular, which phenomena will be captured, in selecting the strain energy function representing the
primary (rate independent) elasticity, the number of networks and the plasticity procedure. It is anticipated that
multiple attempts are necessary to get the best material fit.
Note, when creating ragged tables for the Parallel Rheological Network models there is one independent variable
(time) and two dependent variables, stress and strain. An optimization procedure is used to obtain the experimental
coefficients. One can control the accuracy of this procedure, which influences the computational costs.
In the example shown below the material data of a Polyether ether ketone (PEEK) thermoplastic material is obtained
from a cyclic loading test. The material exhibits nonlinear elasticity, viscoelastic and permanent deformation behavior.
It is fitted using a 2nd order Mooney-Rivlin model to represent the large strain elasticity, the Arruda-Boyce model to
capture the rate effects and a combined hardening plasticity model. The fitted data and the numerically obtained
material coefficients are shown below.
22 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Material Behavior
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 23
Material Data Security

Material Data Security


In many cases, OEMs and suppliers collaborate on the design and simulation, but do not want to fully share the data.
Marc now provides an option where material data can be stored into a material data file, and this file can be encrypted.
This encrypted file can be authorized to be available at an individual site. Furthermore a time stamp is applied to the
file, which denies access after the selected time. This may be used to ensure that all users are using the latest certified
data.
Multiple materials may be provided in the same file or each material may be placed into separate files. The material
file may contain the physical data associated with all the different physics, even if they are not used in a particular
analysis.
The conventional ASCII file has a suffix of .umt, while the encrypted file has a suffix of .ume and is created using
the menus shown below. To create a material .umt file, the below menu is used.

Selecting Encrypt in the following menu will convert the data to a secure file. It will also create a .umk file that should
be also sent to one's partner, containing encrypted information to allow the utilization of the data. Finally it will create
a .uml file that contains the material names in the encrypted file. The user of the encrypted material data file needs
the material names. The actual material data will not be available to the end user.
24 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Improved Damage modeling

The menu to import the material data file is shown below.

If multiple materials are in the same material data base file, select the “Use Job Reference to Marc Material Data File”
and select the file name through the Job menu as shown below.

For further details, see User’s Guide Problem121 - “Material Data Files and Data Encryption”.

Improved Damage modeling


Damage models such as Lemaitre have a known deficiency that the results are dependent on the mesh size. To
overcome this problem a procedure has been introduced that reduces these effects by introducing a nonlocal effective
plastic strain. This is then used to evaluate the damage. The procedure uses the Laplace equation to diffuse the plastic
strain. A more detailed description is provided in Marc Volume A. As an example the notched specimen is put in
tension until damage occurs. The model is run with different levels of refinement. While the equivalent plastic changes
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 25
Improved Damage modeling

with the mesh density, the nonlocal effective plastic strain is lower in magnitude and has smaller gradients. This makes
it more stable to predict the material damage.

The resultant damage is


26 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Geometry Modeling and CAD Licensing

This is enabled by using

For more information, see the User’s Guide Problem 119 - “Lemaitre Damage Model Using Nonlocal Approach”.

Geometry Modeling and CAD Licensing


Over the last few releases there have been several updates to the CAD import capabilities and the licensing of the
geometry modeler. The 2017 release of Marc and Mentat have significant enhancements for associating CAD
geometries and finite element entities. This results in significant improvement in the user productivity. As in earlier
releases, Mentat 2017 uses the Parasolid geometry engine to store and manipulate geometric entities. This is in addition
to the traditional NURBS representation that has been included in Mentat for many years. The geometric modeling
capability has two license types:
1.Mentat Parasolid CAD
This license type may be used in conjunction with existing Mentat model files containing Parasolid geometries. In the
2017 release one is now able to mesh these geometries without converting the CAD descriptions to traditional NURB
descriptions. These advanced meshing capabilities are especially useful when importing an assembly model. Mentat
can automatically mesh all parts, picking an optimal mesh size for each part, or use a common mesh size for all parts
or based upon user interaction. The chosen value is previewed to you before the meshing operation begins.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 27
Geometry Modeling and CAD Licensing

One is not able to create new solids or manipulate existing ones using this license type. There is NO charge associated
with this license.
2.Mentat Parasolid Solid Modeling
The second license type has greater capability because it allows one to both, create and modify the geometry. This
includes the ability to correct poor geometries, including healing and sewing surfaces together and defeaturing holes,
fillets, chamfers and removing small surfaces. When creating solids, one can perform Boolean operations such as unite,
subtract and intersect. Furthermore, one can blend or chamfer surfaces.
When reading in an existing Mentat database containing Parasolid geometry or performs a solid geometry operation,
the program checks out one of the licenses associated with the versions mentioned above. By default, it looks for the
Mentat Parasolid Solid Modeling license first, and if not present, selects the Mentat Parasolid CAD license. In some
environments, where there are many Mentat users, but only a few Mentat Parasolid Solid Modeling licenses, this may
result in contention. To help alleviate this issue, one can add the argument -nosolidmodeling when starting Mentat,
so it will always check out a Mentat Parasolid CAD License. In this case, if one tries to execute an advanced solid
modeling command, an error message like “Command add_solids is not licensed for use!” will be echoed and the
command will not be executed. While Mentat will not terminate, if the advanced command is executed within a
procedure file, the results may not be satisfactory.
28 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
CAD - Finite Element Mesh Association

CAD - Finite Element Mesh Association


Mentat 2017 continues the evolution of better finite element modeling based upon CAD geometry. In the Marc 2017
release, the CAD geometry after being imported into Mentat can be passed on to the Marc solver program. To
accommodate this, the Marc 2017 release has a major change in the input format to facilitate the association between
geometric entities and finite element entities and to ensure that there is no loss of information when Mentat reads a
Marc input file. The version number associated with this new input format is 13. Marc continues to read input data files
created with previous version numbers. When Mentat 2017 writes out a Marc input file, the newer version will be used
as a default. In general there are no changes to the Mentat GUI but the Marc input file has the following changes.

I Version Number

The default input version is 13, the input file will show:

II Definition of CAD Models

The CAD File used to define the model is referenced in the input file. If the geometry, material, orientation or
contact body is associated with the CAD geometry, this will be specified here. This means that it is no longer
necessary to define a list of elements with these quantities. The input file will show:

III CONNECTIVITY

Additional data is added to the connectivity block to potentially associate a group of elements to CAD geometry
or define the geometry, material, orientation or contact body with a group of elements. The input file will show:
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 29
CAD - Finite Element Mesh Association

IV Solid based Sets

There are now new set types based upon CAD geometry. These includes:

1. CADVERTEX
2. CADEDGE
3. CADFACE
4. CADBODY
The input file will typically show:

V Attach Options

One can now attach/associate finite element entities to the solid geometry entities.
30 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
CAD - Finite Element Mesh Association

VI Material Definition

The Material definition no longer needs a list of elements as the associativity was already defined using the
CAD BODY or CONNECTIVITY model definition option. This is true for all of the conventional materials
and for COMPOSITES, MIXTURE, GASKET, PSHELL, REBAR and THERMO-PORE. A typical input
looks like:

VII Prescribed Initial Conditions and Boundary Conditions

All initial and boundary conditions may be defined with respect to the solid geometry. A typical example is:
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 31
CAD - Finite Element Mesh Association

VIII Post Processing of Solids

The solid bodies may now be displayed during the post processing and the geometric based sets can be
visualized. To activate the display of the geometry in the RESULTS > TOOLS MENU one must activate “Draw
Post File Geometry” using the menu shown below.

If geometric set is selected, one would typically observe

As an example a volume E problem e8x42 was modified so that it was fully created by CAD sheet bodies in 2-
d. In the figure below one observes the geometry as shown using the imported CAD bodies. Along with the
finite element mesh, the contact bodies and material properties are associated with these CAD parts. If a CAD
assembly was imported this could be done for each individual part.
32 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
CAD - Finite Element Mesh Association

We then see the analysis model using the Marc contact body concepts, where four Wire bodies are used to
represent one rigid surface.

After the simulation, one can visualize the traditional finite elements, here showing the non-deformed and the
deformed model.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 33
CAD - Finite Element Mesh Association

One can also capture the CAD and finite element representations.
34 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Pyramid Elements

Pyramid Elements
Pyramid elements have been added for structural and thermal analysis. These elements are often used as transition
elements between hexahedral and tetrahedral elements to obtain a conforming mesh. These elements may be generated
by Mentat or other pre-processing tools.

5- node pyramid 13- node pyramid

The new element types are given in the table below:

Lower Order Higher Order


Structural 216 218
Heat Transfer 217 219

These elements may be used with all material properties. For the lower order structural pyramid the constant dilatation
capability is activated for large strain problems to satisfy the nearly incompressible behavior.
The three dimensional mesh generator has been modified to create meshes as shown in the images below. One needs
to activate the HYBRID mesher using either of the menus shown below. In the one on the left a mesh is directly made
from a solid geometry. Using the mesh on the right, a surface mesh is created first, and then the volume mesh is created.
In this case if the surface elements are quadrilateral, then pyramid elements will be placed on the outside.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 35
Pyramid Elements

For example, the solid model shown below is meshed with both a full tetrahedral mesh and with the hybrid mesher.
36 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Pyramid Elements

Selecting a section of the mesh one sees that all three classes of elements are used, where the core is made of hexahedral
elements.

In this case a tetrahedral mesh would have had 66,642 elements. Using the hybrid mesher, there was as total of 38,215
elements. The alternative approach, where the surface mesh is created first, based upon quadrilateral mesh and then
meshed through the volume. In this case the mesh looks like:
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 37
Pyramid Elements

There are two things to consider, the number of elements of each type and the amount of the volume occupied by each
element type. This is summarized in the table below.

CAD model summary


Hybrid mesh from CAD Surface mesh, then Hybrid mesh
#elem %elem %volume #elem %elem %volume
Tetra 36759 96.2% 86.0% 79309 79.4% 33%
Hexa 522 1.4% 10.7% 8942 9.0% 54%
Pyramid 934 2.4% 3.3% 11573 11.6% 13%
Total 38215 100% 100% 99824 100% 100%

One should note that if one does not select the element types using the JOB > Elements command, the default element
types will be:

Lower Order Lower Order Higher Order Higher Order


Structural Heat Transfer Structural Heat Transfer
Tetrahedral 134 135 127 133
Pyramid 216 217 218 219
Hexahedral 7 43 21 44

It is recommended for nonlinear models to select element type 157 for the lower order tetrahedral elements
In the Marc 2017 release, the pyramid elements may not be used with local or global adaptive meshing.
38 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Pyramid Elements

In the example below meshes of different types are used to predict the buckling mode of an Euler column.

Hexahedra Tetrahedra Pyramids


Linear 6.64750E+05 6.81969E+05 6.80487E+05
Quadratic 6.51665E+05 6.52690E+05 6.52361E+05

The analytical solution is 6.57E+05.


One observes that for lower order pyramids the results are a little stiffer than the hexahedral element, but for the higher
order elements the pyramids are a little softer.
Verification of these element in Marc Volume E - problems 5.26 (heat transfer) and 8.127 for mechanical behavior.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 39
Piezoelectric Elements

Piezoelectric Elements
Piezoelectric materials are often used as actuators to modify the geometry of shell structures or as transducers. In these
applications the piezoelectric material is subjected to bending behavior. In Marc 2017 new higher order 3-D elements
have been added to complement the lower order elements that were previously available. The new elements are 242
and 243.

Existing Lower Order New Higher Order


Hexahedral 163 242
Tetrahedral 164 243

Piezoelectric materials may be used in static, modal, harmonic and transient analysis. In the example below a harmonic
analysis is performed on an ultrasonic motor.

Ultrasonic motor

Piezoelectric materials
40 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Mentat Undo

Displacement Linear Quad


‘Z’ (Hex-8) Assumed Strain (Hex-20)
Min. 2.333e-11 5.808e-8 3.107e-8
Max. 4.953e-9 6.107e-7 1.864e-7

For further details see User Guide chapter 92.

Mentat Undo
The Mentat Undo capability has been extended to support multiple levels of undo. The capability was achieved by
reducing the time to write a back-up of the model data file. This is enabled by modifying the Mentat start-up script or
changing the properties on the Mentat shortcut (Windows only) to include -multiundo on. See Marc and Mentat
Installation and Operations Guide. It will put intermediate copies of the database in a temporary directory or in a user-
defined location.

After you initiate Mentat with multiple undo, the top tool bar will be updated to indicate that one can go forward and
backwards.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 41
Global Adaptive Meshing Enhancements

Global Adaptive Meshing Enhancements


The global adaptive meshing capability has been enhanced to support higher order tetrahedral elements, which are
often required for bending dominated models. Additionally, the procedure has been improved to better represent the
current deformed geometry and create higher quality elements.
There isn't any new input associated with supporting the higher order tetrahedral elements. The capability is
demonstrated for three typical applications, fracture mechanics, analysis of a rubber seal and a metal forming
application.
In the model below an elastic thin plate with a surface crack is subjected to bending. The mesh on the left uses the
lower order elements and four elements are initially through the thickness and the target element is 5. The mesh on the
right uses higher order elements, and the target element size is 10. We know that the higher order element gives
substantially better performance in bending.

Lower Initial Mesh Higher Initial Mesh

The mesh in the vicinity of the crack at the end of the analysis are shown below.
42 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Global Adaptive Meshing Enhancements

Low Order Elements Zoom Mesh High Order Elements Zoom Mesh
After applying a bending rotation, the stresses are as shown below:

Lower Order Elements Stress


Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 43
Global Adaptive Meshing Enhancements

Higher Order Elements Stress

The energy release rate is as shown below:


44 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Global Adaptive Meshing Enhancements

Lower Order Elements Energy Release Rate Higher Order Elements Energy Release Rate
The following table shows a summary of the results:

Initial Number Final Number of Energy Release


of Elements Elements Maximum Stress Rate
Lower Order 21917 100516 4.738e5 9.387e3
Higher Order 4911 33019 4.676e5 9.066e3

The next example demonstrates the compression followed by pushing of the O-ring to fill the channel using higher
order tetrahedral elements. The advantage of using the higher order elements is that one can capture, with more
accuracy, the curvature of the sliding over the fillet; where the maximum stress occurs.

Increment 50 Increment 70
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 45
Multi-Physics

The third example shows a simple metal punching problem. Only one quarter of the model is shown due to symmetry.
The initial model is shown below, along with the final deformation showing the plastic strains. The model is run with
lower order element type 157.

Largest Number
Initial Mesh of Elements pl Punch Force
Lower Order 3223 13302 2.03 6.254e5
Higher Order 3223 3223 1.79 6.225e5

Multi-Physics
For induction heating simulations, often the cost of performing the magnetodynamic pass to obtain the magnetic field
is much more expensive because of the costs of modeling the air region. Often, in fact there are not significant changes
in the magnetic field from increment to increment. One can now control the frequency of the evaluation by using the
Pass Control capability as shown below. This extends the previous capability where one could control the frequency
of the stress pass.
46 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Solver Enhancements

Solver Enhancements
The Pardiso parallel solver has been enhanced such that for real positive definite matrices the singularity ratio is
provided in the output file. When the system is non-positive definite, such as when Herrmann elements are used such
as types 32-35, 58-61, 63, 66, 74, 80-84, 128-130, and 155-157 the value obtained is not accurate and is not provided.
For very large model the MUMPS solver can now utilize an out-of-core procedure.
Enhancements have been made to DDM using the MUMPS solver. The combination of DDM and MUMPS solver is
designed to be used in a Distributed Memory Parallel (DMP) environment. In the Marc 2016 and previous release when
using DDM and MUMPS the stiffness matrix of elements in each domain were assembled in parallel and then
combined on the master processor. The global stiffness was then redistributed to the different computers to be
decomposed in parallel. This is shown in the figure below.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 47
Solver Enhancements

In the Marc 2017 release, the assembly of the global stiffness can be done in a distributed manner across the different
processors. This is advantageous because less memory is used on the master processor. This can also resulted in less
I/O time. The reduction of I/O time is highly dependent upon the system used for the Message Passage Interface (MPI).
The new system is shown below.

As an example a very large detailed engine model was used to test out these changes. The model contains 2.5 million
elements, 3.35 million nodes, in 28 contact bodies. A well configured cluster machine was used configured with 256
GB memory and Intel Xeon E5-2660 v3 @ 2.60 GHz. There are 4 compute nodes linked with an infiniband switch.
48 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Solver Enhancements

This model uses DDM with the new distributed assembly time. In the case of 8 domains, two domains would be run
on the same compute cluster. One can observe that the out-of-core leads to only minor deterioration in the performance.
One can also see good performance gains by using DDM combined with MUMPS. In this case a single input file was
used and the decomposition was done in Marc.

The use of the distributed assembly was a significant impact on the memory usage. First looking at the total memory
usage, one observes that the total memory (in Gb) does not significantly increase by adding more domains.

More significantly, the maximum amount of memory per processing unit is substantially less than in the previous
release.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 49
Solver Enhancements

The menus to control parallelization have been changed. The default is Multifrontal solution with No DDM as shown
below. One can select a different solver, or activate parallelization by selecting the button.
.
50 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Solver Enhancements

If you select MUMPS solver, an additional button to activate the out-of-core storage is available as shown below:
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 51
Solver Enhancements

If DDM is selected, the menu like the one shown below appears:

Note that the number of processors used for DDM and the number of processors used for MUMPS will be the same.
By selecting the button DDM Options one can control if the global stiffness matrix will be solved on the master
processor or distributed across the different processors. The Distributed Direct Solver is now recommended on a
distributed memory hardware.
52 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Post Codes

Post Codes
The following new element Post Codes are added for the Marc 2017 Release:
• 90 – Yield Stress at t = 20°C and strain rate = 0.01
• 187 – Current value of the nonlocal equivalent plastic strain
• 188 - Incremental value of the nonlocal equivalent plastic strain

The following are new nodal Post Codes


• 93 - Film Heat Flux (due to contact films and radiation)
• 94 - Contact Normal Interaction Forces
• 95 - Contact Normal Interaction Moments
• 96 - Contact Tangential Interaction Forces
• 97 - Contact Tangential Interaction Moments
• 98 - Contact Interaction Flux
• 99 - Nonlocal equivalent plastic strain
• 100 - Nonlocal RHS

Post File Revision


The default post vile revision for Marc 2017 is now 14. The post file format has been updated to support new
capabilities some of which were discussed elsewhere. These updates include:
Treatment of post codes when shell elements are used. Post Block 50602
Material ID, Material type, Geometry ID and Geometry type associated with each element - Post Block 50700.
Color ID associated with sets - Post Block 51302
Longer set names - Post Block 51302
Additional data stored for each contact body - Post Block 52201
Color ID associated with contact body - Post Block 51402
Node ID associated with load controlled rigid bodies. Post Block 51402
Contact Interaction Data - New Post Block 53900
CAD Body association - New Post Block 54300
Material model information - New Post Block 54000
Geometry property information - New Post Block 54100
CAD Part information - New Post Block 54200
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 53
Post File Revision

Updates to Attach Nodes data - Post Block 53301


Updates to Attach Edges data - Post Block 53401
Updates to Attach Face data - Post Block 53501
The PLDUMP programs have been updated as well as discussed in Marc Volume D.
54 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
List of Known Defects in the 2017 Release

List of Known Defects in the 2017 Release


Marc
Contact
MARC-7984 When using node-to-segment contact in a coupled analysis, if a node contacts both a surface with
glued contact and a surface with conventional contact, then there is incorrect heat transfer on the
touching face.
MARC-5102 Stress-free initial contact may not work correctly in a large rotation segment-to-segment contact
analysis.

Adaptive Meshing
MARC-7978 Hard nodes in the interior of the mesh are not available when using Global Adaptive Meshing in 2-D,
hence if a boundary condition such as a Point Load, Fixed Displacement is applied to a point, then
after remeshing, it will be applied to the node of the new mesh with the same ID as the node from the
original mesh that is attached to the point, but this node may be in a different location.

Loads and Boundary Conditions


MARC-7945 The second field of the LOADCASE history definition option which can be used to scale loads, should
not be used with thermal loads (Point Temperatures or Change State) in a thermal structural analysis,
since the temperatures may be incorrect.

Parallel Processing
MARC-7978 If a Marc model uses non-consecutive node and element numbering such that the ID’s are much larger
than the number of nodes and elements in the model, then the amount of memory required in a DDM
analysis is significantly larger than in a serial analysis.

Mentat
General
MARC-3772 If a model file or a post file is opened while the graphics window shows a table, a history plot, or a
path plot (in general, anything other than the model) from another model file or post file, then the
filename displayed in the title bar of the Mentat window is potentially incorrect.
MARC-5343 Faceted surfaces can not be duplicated, neither using the commands in the Geometry & Mesh 
Duplicate menu, nor using the commands in the Geometry & Mesh  Symmetry menu.
MARC-5408 The cross hairs option, which was available in Mentat Classic to provide guidance when picking items
from the graphics window and which could be activated by clicking the SHIFT key on the graphics
window, is not supported in the new Mentat.
MARC-5675 The progress meter is neither updated during meshing of solid, sheet or wire bodies, nor during
meshing of the volume enclosed by a surface mesh by the Patran tetrahedral mesher.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 55
List of Known Defects in the 2017 Release

MARC-5888 If automatic updates of the graphics windows are disabled by switching off the Update option in the
Tools  Program Settings menu, then the default method to create snapshots of the graphics window
will produce blank images. The workaround is to enable the Use Screen Captures option in the
Window  Snapshot menu before creating the image. Note that if automatic updates are disabled, the
graphics windows can be updated manually by clicking the Regenerate button.
MARC-6547 In rare cases, the Cross Elements command in the Geometry & Mesh  Check menu may incorrectly
report elements as crossing each other.
MARC-6568 In the new Mentat, the Dynamic Lighting option in the View  Lighting Control  View Lighting
Control menu does not function. In classic Mentat, local lights could be moved with the mouse if this
option is switched on, but this does not function in the new Mentat.
MARC-7008 On Windows, upon undocking the model navigator window, the drag and drop functionality no longer
works.
MARC-8440 It is not possible to run a DCOM program while Mentat runs in the background, since the DCOM
server must be started from a procedure file. Although the procedure file can be executed in the
background (using the -bg command line option), Mentat will automatically open the main window
when the procedure file ends.
MARC-8600 The database function set_entry(), that returns the id of a specific entry of a set, does not function for
sets of type solid, solid_face, solid_edge and solid_vertex.
MARC-9582 STL files are imported as faceted surfaces by default (i.e. surfaces consisting of triangular or
quadrilateral facets), but upon export of the model to STL, faceted surfaces are not exported.

Preprocessing
MARC-1622 Mentat is unable to control the prescribed displacement boundary conditions in a Modal Dynamics
Load case. This may results in problems with Design Optimization in a modal dynamics simulation.
MARC-2136 Mentat does not support the Foundation option for 2-node line elements.
MARC-3511 The General Traction distributed load type 21 is not supported within Mentat.
MARC-3587 Multiple axes of rotation for Centrifugal loads are not supported within Mentat.
MARC-4544 Mentat does not support the Marc option to choose magnitude/phase or real/imaginary nodal output in
harmonics for the PRINT NODE option.
MARC-4596 Mentat allows creating materials with identical names. This can be confusing when selecting a
material.
MARC-5352 Mentat does not support Geometric Properties for Electrostatic analyses to define for example, the
thickness of a shell. The workaround is to temporarily change the Analysis class to Thermal, create a
Thermal Geometric Property of the appropriate type for these elements and then change the Analysis
Class back to Electrostatic.
MARC-5763 Graphics updates are slow if many elements in the model have an orientation of type Curves (i.e. the
first direction of the material coordinate system of the element is defined by the tangent to curve at the
point of the curves closest to the element centroid). The workaround is to turn off the display of
Orientations via the View  Plot Control menu.
56 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
List of Known Defects in the 2017 Release

MARC-6492 No Planar Truss Geometric Property type is available in Mentat to define the properties of Marc
element type 9 (a truss element which can be used both in 2-D and in 3-D analyses) if the element is
used in a 2-D analysis. As a workaround, a Geometric Property of type 3-D Truss can be created
instead.
MARC-6598 In 2-D models, Mentat allows one to apply initial conditions like Initial Temperature, Initial Velocity,
etc. on surfaces. However, this is not supported by Marc. Such initial conditions must instead be
applied to the nodes of the faces attached to the surfaces.
MARC-8092 If for a Geometric Property of type Structural 3-D Thin-walled Section Beam the option Open Section
has been selected in the Element Types submenu (causing the Element Types fields to be set to 79 and
77), the plot option Plot Beams In 3-D may fail. Workaround is to temporarily switch to Closed
Section, set the Cross Section to General and switch back to Open Section. Saving the model after this
change is recommended.
MARC-8601 Mentat does not support Element type 198 in a Current/Thermal analysis although this element is
supported by Marc in such an analysis.
MARC-9564 If a solid body is rotated or scaled using the commands in the Geometry & Mesh  Operations  Move
menu and the origin of the local coordinate system, defined via the Geometry & Mesh  Coordinate
System  Edit menu and visualized by the Grid, does not coincide with the original of the global
system, then the results are incorrect. If the body has been meshed and the Combined Move operation
is used to move both solid and mesh simultaneously, then the operation will fail.

CAD
MARC-5655 For some CAD models, the automatic feature removal options in the File  Import  General CAD
As Solid menu may fail. Workaround is to remove the features after import via the Defeature menu on
the Geometry & Mesh tab of the main menu.
MARC-8002 The Holes and Pockets options in the Import  General CAD As Solids  Defeature Settings menu,
that allow one to select the types of holes that are to be removed when importing a CAD model, do not
work. If the Remove Holes/Pockets option is switched on, then all holes and pockets with a radius
within the given range are removed from the model.
MARC-8066 On rare occasions, defeaturing may not work correctly for certain features, like chamfers, fillets, etc.

Postprocessing
MARC-1226 The automatically computed value range for a vector plot of 3-D continuum elements may be wrong
when only the Edges on the Surface are being drawn.
MARC-4622 In rare cases, a non-symmetric contour plot is shown for a symmetric problem.
MARC-5015 The automatically computed range of the current scalar or vector quantity, as shown in the Scalar Plot
Settings and Vector Plot Settings menus, respectively, is not updated automatically if one skips to a
different increment. The legend on the graphics window shows the correct range though. The menus
can be updated by pressing the Enter key once in the “Command” box of the Dialog, i.e. by entering
an empty command string.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 57
List of Known Defects in the 2017 Release

MARC-5409 In rare cases, if sample points have been created during postprocessing of a job with global remeshing,
the program may not be able to map a sample point from the current mesh to the mesh corresponding
to another increment when skipping to or past that increment. In that case, the message “WARNING:
Could not update sample point” is printed.
MARC-5748 When postprocessing jobs in which VCCT cracks are initiated during the analysis (i.e. not all cracks
already exist at the start of the analysis), then history plots involving crack related quantities, such as
Energy Release Rate, Accumulated Crack Growth and the Number of Fatigue Cycles, may be
incorrect if the data is collected in a range of increments in which a new crack has been initiated. The
workaround is to collect data from the increment in which the crack has been initiated to the last
increment before the next crack is initiated.
MARC-5906 If Cutting Planes are defined in postprocessing and the extreme values of the quantity are assumed on
the cutting plane and not on the surface of the model, then these extreme values are not reflected in the
legend.
MARC-7228 Animation does not work in a harmonic analysis if the results are not complex (real only). This is the
case if the applied load is real and there is no damping.
MARC-7397 Mentat fails to make a movie, when either the starting index is greater than 10,000 or the index
becomes larger than 10,000; for example, if trying to capture more than 10,0000 frames.
MARC-8114 If the entities (surfaces, curves and points) of a trimmed geometric contact body are made invisible
through the command sequence Select Contact Body Entities / Make Invisible, then the trimming
curves show up again when skipping to an increment with a different mesh (due to remeshing).
Workaround is to make the contact body itself invisible, e.g. through the Model Navigator.
MARC-8764 If a report is created using the Report Writer for selected entities (nodes and/or elements) and over a
list of increments while post-processing a job with adaptive meshing, then no data will be reported for
the selected entities, unless they have been selected in the finite element mesh of the first increment in
the list. In that case, data will also be reported for subsequent increments in the list until the finite
element mesh changes. A workaround is to create a report of the current increment for the selected
entities, or for all entities over the increment list.

Marc Writer
MARC-4047 Mentat does not write a correct Marc input file if two node, element, edge, face, point, curve, or
surface sets exist with the same name.
MARC-5929 If a WELD FLUX boundary condition is not explicitly selected in a load case of a restart analysis,
Mentat does not write WELD PATH and WELD FLUX data into the Marc data file, causing Marc to stop
prematurely with exit number 77.
MARC-7215 User defined point, curve and surface sets consisting of points, curves and surfaces of a geometric
contact body, or of points, curves and surfaces which are not used in the finite element analysis (i.e.
do not have mesh attached, are not used to define the material coordinate system of an Orientation,
etc) can be written to the Marc input file as empty sets and thus will show up in postprocessing also
as empty sets for DDM analyses using decomposition in Mentat.
58 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
List of Known Defects in the 2017 Release

MARC-7996 If user has multiple pressure cavities, each cavity should have its own distribute load. Do not assign
multiple cavities to a distributed load.
MARC-8105 If old-style input is used, an incorrect input file may be written for a job that contains a harmonic load
case with a distributed load. Workaround is to use new-style (table-driven) input.

Graphic Display
.

MARC-7266 When using remote access (for example, VNC) to use Mentat on a Linux machine, creation of GIF
movies may fail; the image may appear mirrored.

Nastran Reader
MARC-6028 If a Nastran bulk data file is imported in Mentat and the file does not end with ENDDATA or with a
blank line, then the last entry in the file is not imported. The workaround is to add the ENDDATA or
a blank line to the end of the file.
MARC-9053 If an SPC1 option in a Nastran bulk data file contains a line that does not end with a continuation
character, but the line is followed by a (possibly empty) line that starts with a continuation character,
then the data on this SPC1 option is not imported correctly in Mentat.

Nastran Writer
MARC-6481 Exporting shell elements with orthotropic material properties to a Nastran bulk data file is incorrect.
In the bulk data file, the material properties for the shell elements are defined via a MAT3 option, while
a MAT8 should be used instead.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 59
List of Defects Corrected in the 2017 Release

List of Defects Corrected in the 2017 Release


Marc
Contact
MARC-9648 If in a contact analysis a non-zero kinematic boundary condition is applied during increment 0 and in
the first load case, and its value is relative to the beginning of the load case, then the actually applied
value during this load case is incorrect. A work around was to deactivate the boundary condition
during increment 0
MARC-8665 If in a contact analysis with stress-free initial contact elements with extra nodes are used (element type
80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 155, 156, 157, 239, 240 or 241) and the extra nodes will not be written to the results
file (15th field of the 2nd data block of the POST option is set to 1), then the results file was corrupted.
A workaround was to use the option FEATURE,10401.
MARC-8607 If in a segment-to-segment contact analysis with friction type 6 (bilinear Coulomb friction model)
and the friction coefficient is defined via User Subroutine UFRIC, the frictional behavior could be
incorrect, i.e. the friction force could be too small.
MARC-8751 For segment-to-segment contact, the nodal post code 38 (Contact Status) did not support Near
Contact.
MARC-8776 In rare cases, a segment-to-segment contact analysis could terminate prematurely if the Approach
option is used.
MARC-8572 In a 3-D node-to-segment contact analysis with Geometric Bodies with Nodes, the contact forces on
the nodes of a Geometric Body with Nodes were not available for post processing. Moreover, neither
in a 2-D nor in a 3-D node-to-segment contact analysis, these contact forces were added to the total
contact body force of a Geometric Body with Nodes.
MARC-8204 If the near contact distance tolerance is not specified by the user, the near contact distance (nodal post
code 65) was not calculated for meshed contact bodies with a contact body number greater than one.
MARC-8189 The segment-to-segment contact algorithm could not be used in a piezo-electric analysis.
MARC-8215 If, using the segment-to-segment contact algorithm, two meshed (deformable) contact bodies came
into contact after having been in near contact, then penetration could be observed.
MARC-8831 If the position of a position controlled geometric (rigid) contact body given in the input file does not
coincide with that in a time dependent table given for this position at time t=0, the time dependent table
is not used to define the position, but its time derivative is used to define the velocity. This was,
however, not clearly echoed in the output file.
MARC-8793 If, using the segment-to-segment contact algorithm, a body which is in near contact with another body
is remeshed, then the gap between the bodies got closed.
MARC-8750 If the segment-to-segment contact algorithm is used in a DDM welding analysis, then the use of
deactivated welding elements could cause the program to stop with exit number 1001 and the use of
quiet welding elements could give an incorrect contact status on the post file.
MARC-8802 In rare cases, a segment-to-segment contact analysis using the stress-free projection option could
result in incorrect contact stresses.
60 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
List of Defects Corrected in the 2017 Release

MARC-8620 The nodal post quantity Relative Sliding Velocity was not available in a segment-to-segment contact
analysis. Now it available for contact bodies being in frictional contact.
MARC-8216 Electrical and thermal contact coefficients depending on the contact pressure using a table did not
function correctly with segment-to-segment contact.
MARC-8523 The contact surface of a 3-D meshed body using local adaptivity in combination with element
deactivation, could be wrong.
MARC-8208 In a coupled thermal-mechanical analysis using the node-to-segment contact algorithm, nodes which
are thermally glued at the start of the analysis would still be thermally glued if they come again in
contact after separation due to the breaking glue option.
MARC-8213 In a coupled thermal-mechanical analysis using the segment-to-segment contact algorithm, contact
bodies which are thermally glued at the start of the analysis would still be thermally glued if they come
again in contact after separation due to the breaking glue option.
MARC-8402 Defining a zero initial gap between two touching contact bodies could affect the results.
MARC-9029 In rare cases, if a node is in glued contact with one body and also in contact with one or two other
bodies, the projection routine failed and an Marc stopped with exit number 9992. A workaround was
to switch on the option that a node which is in glued contact with one body cannot come into contact
with other bodies.
MARC-8003 When using an Initial Gap/Overclosure defined via a Contact Table and if the Search Tolerance is
Automatic, then erroneous contact detection could occur. The workaround was to provide a user-
defined tolerance.

Fracture Mechanics
MARC-9556 For 3D crack propagation using remeshing, the accumulated growth increment was inaccurate (too
large) for some crack front nodes if the mesh along the crack front was coarse and the crack front was
curved.
MARC-9033 If in a 3-D crack propagation analysis, a nodal boundary condition, such as a fixed displacement or a
fixed temperature, was applied to a surface and the crack would reach the element faces attached to
that surface, then the program could terminate prematurely.
MARC-7470 When a model had more than one materials, one with CRACK DATA and the others not, then elements
with material without CRACK DATA got non-zero cracking strains.

In a coupled analysis with multi-physics material input, CRACK DATA in the model was ignored
during the analysis.
MARC-8994 If the triangles of a faceted surface used for crack initiation with remeshing are very large compared
to the elements where the crack is initiated, Marc could fail to initiate the crack properly and the
analysis would stop.
MARC-7030 In 3D crack propagation using remeshing it could happen that the job stopped when the crack front
ended up close to the model boundary and was not able to growth through the entire section.
MARC-9039 In rare cases, if a crack initiator consists of a single triangle, the program could stop prematurely.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 61
List of Defects Corrected in the 2017 Release

Global Remeshing and Local Adaptivity


MARC-8023 When an element touching a (symmetry) surface has local adaptive refinement, the thermal boundary
conditions on the surface were incorrect at the transition area from coarse to finer mesh.
MARC-8562 If in a heat transfer analysis global remeshing using tetrahedral elements is applied to a 3-D contact
body, the program could terminate prematurely.
MARC-9499 Local adaptivity was not supported for element type 175. Now a 2x2x1 local refinement scheme
similar to that of solid shell element 185 is supported, i.e. in the thickness direction, from face 1-2-3-
4 to face 5-6-7-8, no refinement is applied.
MARC-9061 Global remeshing in combination with distributed load on shell elements could have had wrong
distributed loads after remeshing.
MARC-8513 If more memory is needed for running an analysis with global remeshing than what is available on the
machine, it could happen that Marc stopped prematurely without printing a proper error message.
MARC-8516 When using a non-zero kinematic boundary condition with the time dependence set to “Ramp Current
To Target”, its value was not correctly applied after remeshing.
When using a non-zero boundary condition with a time dependence, its value was not correctly applied
after remeshing when used in multiple loadcases.
MARC-9548 A contact analysis using DDM, SPLINE and LOCAL ADAPTIVE could cause the program to
terminate prematurely.
MARC-8729 Restart in an analysis using remeshing did not work correctly when the “Strain Change” remeshing
criterion is used.
MARC-8991 When there is a mixture of user defined soft edges and internally generated soft edges in 3D
remeshing, meshing could fail, leading to an exit number 5059.
MARC-9045 If an initial mesh contains collapsed hexahedral elements in a crack initiation analysis using
remeshing, then in rare cases the analysis could stop prematurely.
MARC-7142 Compared to previous Marc versions, the preservation of the geometry in an analysis with global
remeshing is more accurate.
MARC-9069 In rare cases, a model using global adaptive remeshing in 2D with the overlay mesher (generally not
recommended) could terminate prematurely.

Materials
MARC-8851 If the volumetric behavior of a Mooney or Ogden material is defined using a series expansion and the
model also contains a CBUSH element, then Marc stopped erroneously with exit number 13.
MARC-9035 The Hashin-tape failure criterion had an error in the calculation of the criterion in case of different
allowable shear strengths S13 and S23.
MARC-8108 When the UNIT parameter option is used in an analysis with the Lemaitre damage model, the reported
damage value was incorrect if the unit system is not in SI-mm.
MARC-8552 For the principal-tension damage model, element removal did not work if the entered damage
threshold value is greater than zero.
MARC-8181 The solid-shell element (type 185) didn't work with the rigid-plastic flow material model.
62 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
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Multi-physics
MARC-9552 Thermal strains in a thermal-mechanical coupled analysis with the COUPLE CONTROL option and
the frequency of the stress pass being equal to that of the heat transfer pass, should be identical to the
thermal strains if the analysis is run without the COUPLE CONTROL option; however, this was not
the case.
MARC-8128 The thermal strains for triangular elements were incorrect if the COUPLE CONTROL option is used.
MARC-8943 In a coupled thermal-mechanical analysis using the Narayanaswamy shift function the fictive
temperatures were not correct.
MARC-9545 In a coupled magnetodynamic/thermal/structural analysis, which uses the dual mesh method,
structural penta elements did not map their material properties to the magnetodynamic background
mesh.
MARC-9473 In a coupled magnetodynamic/thermal/structural analysis, the element results for the thermal energy
density (post code 89) were incorrect. However, Marc used the correct energy density in the analysis.
MARC-9005 A coupled magnetodynamic/thermal/structural analysis could terminate prematurely if the option to
optimize contact constraints is used in a situation where contact changes and the frequency of the
magnetodynamic pass is zero.
MARC-5612 In order to speed up a magnetodynamic/thermal/structural analysis, the frequency of executing the
magnetodynamic analysis pass can now be user-controlled.
MARC-8577 In a transient magnetodynamic analysis, non-linear B-H material behavior was not accurately taken
into account.
MARC-8580 User subroutines UMU, USIGMA, and UEPS could not be used in coupled
magnetodynamic/thermal/structural analyses which use the dual mesh approach.
MARC-8691 Beam element types 52 and 98 with geometric properties defined by the BEAM SECT option could
behave incorrectly in a coupled thermal-mechanical analysis.
MARC-8118 If element type 185 is used in a coupled analysis with a radiating cavity and contact, the analysis could
stop with exit number 1050.
MARC-8597 Piezoelectric element quantities on the post file for non-piezo elements must be zero, but showed up
as non-zero. This did not affect the overall analysis.
MARC-8442 In rare cases, a thermo-mechanical analysis with distributed fluxes on solid element faces could stop
prematurely with exit number 1007.
MARC-9553 When in a coupled magnetostatic/structural analysis an inductance calculation is performed, the
calculated Lorentz force could be wrong.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 63
List of Defects Corrected in the 2017 Release

MARC-8124 In a thermal analysis:


(1) non-zero reaction fluxes were erroneously calculated during increment 0;
(2) reaction fluxes due to thermal contact were based on the temperature at the start of the increment
instead of the end of the increment;
(3) the external flux and reaction flux output was not consistent between node-to-segment and
segment-to-segment contact;
(4) the peak temperature on the post file for composite thermal shell elements was wrong and resulted
in a post file which could not be processed correctly.
MARC-8579 For induction heating models which use geometry based coils, heat could be generated in elements
which were selected for the coil, but were outside the defined coil geometry.

Parallel Processing
MARC-8775 If in a DDM analysis the Auto Step option is used with automatic physical criteria, the program could
terminate prematurely.
MARC-8568 Terminating a load case based on the displacement of a specified node (history definition option
TERMINATE) caused the analysis to fail prematurely with exit number 13 if DDM is used.
MARC-8553 If Model Sections are used in a DDM analysis and the Model Sections use consecutive element
numbering, the analysis would prematurely stop with exit number 13.
MARC-8974 In rare cases, a DDM analysis using the COORD SYSTEM option referring to multiple sets, could
hang.
MARC-9586 In rare cases, if a DDM analysis with deactivated filler elements must create a single post file, this post
file could be incorrect and could cause Mentat to terminate prematurely.
MARC-5244 In a DDM analysis using Solver 10 (combined direct-iterative solver), the solver data was incorrectly
read, which could cause the solution to be incorrect.
MARC-8526 A DDM analysis of a model with curve data used to define the friction direction could produce an
incorrect post file if a single post file is requested.
MARC-8789 If a single post file is written in a DDM analysis with element type 241, the analysis could hang or
terminate prematurely, depending on the domain decomposition. If this did not happen, the results
were correct.
MARC-8554 In a rare case, a DDM analysis with the CYLINDRICAL option could stop with exit number 13 if a
node ID exceeds the value of 1000000.

Loads and Boundary Conditions


MARC-7553 When using Pre State with Herrmann elements, the analysis could stop prematurely with exit number
13 if the position-based mapping method is used.
MARC-8570 For element type 157, a body force per unit volume entered via load type 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 or 13, was
incorrectly converted into equivalent nodal loads.
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MARC-8987 If a foundation is applied to a curve and element edges are attached to this curve or if a foundation is
applied to a surface and element faces are attached to this surface, then the results were potentially
incorrect. In the analysis, the foundation was potentially applied to the wrong set of element edges or
element faces. In addition, if a foundation is applied to multiple curves or multiple surfaces, then the
program could terminate prematurely.

The same problems existed for films applied to curves or surfaces, but only if multiple films are
applied on the same curve or surface.
MARC-8989 If the option PRE STATE is used to transfer data from a revision 13 post file for a model containing
elements with nodes having more than three coordinates (like element type 52 or 98), then the program
could terminate prematurely.
MARC-8019 When a group of elements is rotated with the MOVE loadcase and the FeFp formulation is used, the
results were incorrect.
MARC-7506 The PRE STATE option did not support the import of the total strain and the element thickness of shell
elements.
MARC-8782 Reading a post file using the PRE STATE option could fail if this post file includes iterative solution
data.
MARC-9002 When using table driven input, the distributed load values are written on the post file, but were zero
in case of gravity and global element loads.
MARC-6463 In a PRE STATE analysis, the displacement of a free node (i.e. a node which is not part of an element
connectivity) that belongs to RBE's was not transferred from the post file.
MARC-9534 The stress results at increment 0 for a 2-D to 2-D or 3-D to 3-D analysis with Herrmann elements using
the PRE STATE option were incorrect. However, the results after increment 0 were correct.
MARC-6102 If the Post File method has been selected for a Boundary Condition or Initial Condition and not all
nodes (or elements) in the model have been added to this condition, the program did not issue a
warning that this condition will be applied to all nodes (or elements) in the model.
MARC-8133 In a thermal analysis, a convective velocity could not be defined in a local coordinate system.
MARC-8614 A nodal temperature applied using the option Ramp Current To Target Value worked correctly in an
analysis with a single load case, but gave incorrect results in an analysis with multiple load cases.
MARC-7548 If an analysis uses the PRE STATE option and the nodal degrees of freedom are defined in a local
coordinate system (using the TRANSFORMATION option), then the initial velocity defined by
INITIAL VEL option was incorrectly applied.
MARC-9050 If the spring stiffness is given as a function of time, increment, temperature or displacement, the spring
force contribution due to the incremental change of the spring stiffness was not taken into account.
MARC-8684 If the 1-4-2-8-9-5 face or the 2-4-3-9-10-6 face of a 10-node tetrahedral element is involved in the
definition of a 3-D cavity, then the calculated volume of such a cavity was incorrect.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 65
List of Defects Corrected in the 2017 Release

User Subroutines
MARC-8036 The value of mibody(6) in user subroutine FLUX was always zero when using table driven input.
Furthermore, the value of temflu(3) was always the temperature, also during a non-thermal pass.
MARC-7976 Mentat did not export the option for user subroutine umu.F in the Marc input file for an isotropic
magnetodynamic analysis.
MARC-8809 The option MATUDS was not supported in the creation of Model Section files.
MARC-7185 The contents of the call to nodvar.F for Reaction Fluxes (code 16) or External Fluxes (code 15) was
depending on whether a post file is written or not and it was also not always correct and not identical
when it was called from uedinc.F or upstno.F.
MARC-8083 A complex harmonic analysis using shell elements with user subroutine GENSTR gave wrong
imaginary stresses.

Various
MARC-5200 In a linear buckling analysis, stresses in the preferred system were not updated for each buckle mode
requested via the Recover option.
MARC-9495 If element edges of deactivated elements are attached to curves, the program could crash.
MARC-9015 In rare cases, models using gasket materials caused the CASI solver to switch from the iterative to the
direct solver. Though the results were correct, the solution time could increase considerably.
MARC-8515 Tying Forces printed in the output file (using the parameter option PRINT,27) did not contain the force
on the tied nodes. Moreover, the sign of the forces on the retained nodes was different compared to
that of the Tying Forces written to the results file.
MARC-7944 The Auto Step option automatically set the flag to force the solution of a non-positive definite equation
system, without echoing this in the output file.
MARC-9489 If Marc switches the formulation from Updated Lagrange to Total Lagrange for a particular element
group (this typically happens if the parameter option LARGE STRAIN,1 is used and the material is
linear elastic), then instead of using the 2nd Piola-Kirchhoff stress, Marc erroneously used the Cauchy
stress tensor.
MARC-8728 An Adams-Marc co-simulation analysis was limited to 30 interface nodes. If this limit is exceeded, the
Marc simulation could stop prematurely without giving an error message. A work around could be to
have two Marc models, each with not more than 30 interface nodes (which is only possible if the Marc
model can be split into two independent sub-models).
MARC-9477 On Windows, file or directory names with accented characters were not supported by Marc.
MARC-9593 If the option to split elements using the Delamination option is used on a very small model where the
number of added nodes is large compared to the total number of nodes in the model, then Marc could
stop prematurely.
MARC-8110 When there are more than 1000000 items in an element list and the number of elements is not entered
on the SIZING option, the program would stop with exit number 13. A work around was to increase
the value of MAXNUM in the tools/include_Linux64 or tools\include_win64.bat file.
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MARC-9084 The POST option to output data at a given increment frequency did not work correctly in a table-driven
analysis with the CREEP INCREMENT option. Instead of honoring the increment frequency, post
data was written for every increment.
MARC-8125 The dynamic memory allocation for kinematic boundary conditions has been improved. The improved
performance is particularly noticable on Windows machines for models with a very large number of
boundary conditions.
MARC-8678 If a formula evaluation fails, the error message given did not always clearly indicate why the
evaluation fails.

Mentat
General
MARC-9615 When renaming Solids using the Model Tree (by clicking the right-hand side mouse button on a
currently active Solid and selecting Rename), the program did not give focus to the dialog area.
MARC-5827 Popup menus, like those of RBE's, which are resized by the user did not retain the new size, but were
resized back to the original size as soon as a command is executed or if Mentat looses mouse focus
and subsequently gains mouse focus again.
MARC-8599 If a job is copied in which a model section is selected for export and the option to select a user defined
filename for the exported section is activated or the option to Expand the (planar or axisymmetric)
model section upon export is switched on, then Mentat could exit prematurely if subsequently, the two
jobs are deleted, a Marc post file is opened, a new model is created or a different model is opened.
MARC-8514 The Rolling options in the Blend and Chamfer boxes in the Geometry & Mesh  Solids menu had no
effect on the blends and chamfers created by the Edge commands in these boxes. Irrespective of the
values of the Rolling options, the commands always created “rolling blends” and “rolling chamfers”,
in which not only the edge that has been entered is blended or chamfered, but also any adjacent edges
with continuous tangents at the common vertices. This has been corrected. If the Rolling options are
switched off (the default), then only the edge that has been entered is blended or chamfered and the
blend or chamfer does not propagate to adjacent edges.
MARC-8163 If a Marc analysis is launched from within Mentat and Mentat is stopped while the Marc analysis is
still running, the Mentat license would not be returned until the Marc analysis is finished.
MARC-8192 If a rubber or foam material is used in a small strain analysis, Mentat would submit the job without
printing a warning message.
MARC-8926 If the PRINT ELEM option was used with an empty element list, upon reading the data file in Mentat,
full element print out was activated.

If the PRINT NODE option was used with an empty node list, upon reading the data file in Mentat,
full nodal print out was activated.
MARC-8740 If the minimum yield stress used by the Rate Power Law model is equal to zero, which is a valid
number, an error message was nevertheless printed by Mentat when performing a Job check or
writing a Marc data file.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 67
List of Defects Corrected in the 2017 Release

MARC-9608 If a Mentat model file written by Marc Mentat 2007 or a newer version is opened, then Mentat did
not recognize the version used to write the model file and issued the message “File is Mentat, version
unknown”.
MARC-9542 If in Mentat relative displacement checking is selected as the method to check the analysis
convergence and non-zero values for the minimum and maximum displacement increment have been
entered, then these non-zero values were written to the Marc data file and they could affect the
convergence behavior.
MARC-8661 Patran neutral files created on a Windows platform could not be imported by Mentat on a Linux
platform.
MARC-8652 For Marc versions older then version 2017, material names were written to the Marc input file with a
maximum of 48 characters, whereas Marc can only handle 24 characters. This had no influence on
the results. For a model containing materials with names longer than 24 characters, the names would
appear truncated to 24 characters if a Marc input file is written and subsequently read back.
MARC-8612 The program could terminate prematurely if a string longer than 256 characters is used in a
command.
MARC-8738 The TRACK option gave incorrect results for an analysis with more than one meshed (deformable)
contact body; in particular, the data for nodes that do not belong to the first contact body was wrong.
Mentat did not open the .trk file automatically when a post file of a serial analysis is opened. As a
workaround, the user could scan the post file.
MARC-8755 If a model file cannot be opened, the error message printed in the dialog box did not correctly
indicate whether the missing file is of type .mfd or .mud.
MARC-8689 When a Model Section file is created from an input file with non-consecutive numbering, Mentat
could possibly use the wrong node IDs and/or element IDs (i.e. when defining boundary conditions
on Model Section entities).
MARC-8457 Plotting the geometry of a model with a large number of surfaces and a large number of curves was
very slow.
MARC-7935 Setting the line width did not work correctly if multiple curves are plotted in the Generalized XY Plot
window.
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Marc Writer
MARC-8935 In 3-D contact analyses, geometric contact bodies which are defined by sheet bodies were not always
written correctly to the Marc input file. The orientation of the surfaces that define the outer surface of
these geometric contact bodies in the Marc input file did not always match the orientations of the sheet
bodies. If the sheet bodies are defined correctly, such that meshed bodies touch the sheet bodies at back
side (the side colored brown by the Identify Backfaces command), then this could lead to contact not
being found, premature separation or penetration in the analysis. Note that the orientation of these
surfaces can be checked via the Idenfiy Backfaces command in postprocessing. The workaround was
to flip the orientation of the sheet bodies before submitting the job or writing the Marc input file.
MARC-9616 If in a 2-D model, the second node (node B) of a coordinate system defined via the Nodes method is
not specified, then Mentat failed to write out the coordinate system to the Marc input file and instead
printed a number of warning and/or error message. However, the node B is optional in a 2-D analysis,
as it defines the direction of the local z-axis, which for a 2-D model always coincides with the global
z-axis.

Marc Reader
MARC-8619 When reading a Marc data file with 3-D geometric bodies, the surface divisions of such bodies were
not read. When exporting the model to a Marc data file, this in rare resulted in different surface
divisions compared to the orginal data file (i.e. higher numbers), which slowed down the analysis.
MARC-8741 When importing TERMINATE option 5 (minimum distance between two contact bodies), the second
body was not processed.
MARC-9619 User transformations defined by the UTRANFORM option in the Marc input file (which activates
user subroutine UTRANS) were not imported back into Mentat.
MARC-8501 The Mentat Marc reader did not process the user subroutine option UFXORD.

Nastran Reader
MARC-7054 Contact body data supplied via the new forms BCBODY1, BCBDPRP, BCBZIER, BCNURB2,
BCNURBS, BCPATCH, BCRIGID, BCRGSRF, BCTRIM and GMNURB is not translated. Contact
body data supplied via the old form BCBODY is only partially translated. Note that contact body data
supplied via the forms BSURF and BCPROP is translated correctly.
MARC-8382 Importing a bdf file could fail if the continuation line of a CTETRA card has trailing blanks.
MARC-8212 For a Nastran file, translation of list failed for "A THRU B BY C" if C is unequal to 1 and for “A
THRU B” if A is greater than B.
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List of Defects Corrected in the 2017 Release

Preprocessing
MARC-8037 In the menu VIEW  PLOT CONTROL, there was no option to deactivate the display of Model
Sections.
MARC-9467 The Find Small Bodies command in the Defeature menu that finds (and selects) the solid bodies in a
given list of bodies whose volume lies within a given range, could potentially find (and select) non-
solid bodies, if such bodies are included in the list. This could happen, for instance, if wildcards such
as All Existing or All Visible are used as input to the command or if the bodies are selected via box-
or polygon-pick methods.
MARC-7828 Adjacent curves with opposite directions are considered to be disjoint, but this was not clearly stated
in the warning and error messages about disjoint curve sections for 2D geometric bodies.
MARC-8103 The Marc reader in Mentat did not support data files which contain more than 1000 contact bodies.
The maximum number has now been increased from 1000 to 32768.
MARC-8860 The design variable parameters Lower Bound and Upper Bound were incorrectly imported from a
model file.
MARC-9565 If assigning element types to elements associated with a solid body failed, no clear warning message
was printed.
MARC-8654 Contact Areas selected in a loadcase of a coupled Magnetodynamic job were not written to the Marc
input file (related Marc options: CONTACT NODE and DEACT GLUE).
MARC-8709 The INSERT NODE option did not function for linear and quadratic pentahedral elements.
MARC-8157 The (convective) velocity could not be selected as a post file quantity in a heat transfer analysis.
Moreover, values written by Marc showed up as scalars instead of vectors.

Postprocessing
MARC-5803 Postprocessing models with many surfaces and many complex trimming curves was slow.
MARC-8753 Mentat could terminate prematurely while creating a report file using the Report Writer in pre-
processing for models that contain contact tables or contact areas.

Menu
MARC-7973 When a table name is a long string, only the left side of name was shown in Mentat menus.

Graphic Display
MARC-5870 If surfaces are plotted in solid mode and the Lines option in the View  Plot Control  Surface
Settings menu is switched off, then some surfaces may not be displayed properly. In rare cases, Mentat
could even terminate prematurely or hang when drawing these surfaces. The same problem existed for
the Identify Backfaces and Identify Contact options.

CAD
MARC-8113 If a blending operation fails, some of the original Parasolid data could be incorrectly modified.
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Hardware / Installations
MARC-9492 A wireless 3D Mouse (Connexion) was not supported by Mentat.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 71
List of Build and Supported Platforms - Marc 2017 Release

List of Build and Supported Platforms - Marc 2017 Release

Marc Platforms
Fortran
Type OS Hardware Version Default MPI
Linux (64 bit) Red Hat RHEL 6.7 Intel EM64T or AMD Opteron Intel XE 20161 Intel MPI 5.1
1
Red Hat RHEL 7.1 Intel EM64T or AMD Opteron Intel XE 2016 Intel MPI 5.1
Windows (64-bit) Windows 7 Intel EM64T or AMD Opteron Intel XE 20161 Intel MPI 5.1.32
Windows 10
Windows Server 2012
1
Intel XE 2016 Fortran compiler is also known as Intel Fortran version 16. When using user subroutines, Intel XE 2016 must be installed. When
using user subroutines on Windows, Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 must also be installed.
2
Supports the Microsoft MPI 1.0 (SP1).

Mentat Platforms
Vendor OS Hardware
Linux (64-bit) Red Hat RHEL 6.7 Intel EM64T or AMD Opteron
Red Hat RHEL 7.1
SUSE 11 SP3 version
Windows (64-bit) Windows 7 Intel EM64T or AMD Opteron
Windows 10
Windows Server 2012
All platforms support Python 2.7.6.

Mentat Graphic Card Support


The following graphics boards have been certified to work with the Mentat 2016 release:

Graphics Board Graphics Driver Version


AMD FirePro W5130M 15.201.1701
AMD FirePro W5170M 15.201.1701
AMD FirePro W7170M 15.201.1701
ATI FirePro V9400 8.911.3.1000
ATI FirePro V5900 8.911.3.1000
ATI FirePro V7900 8.911.3.1000
ATI FirePro V3900 8.911.3.1000
ATI FirePro V7750 8.773.1
NVIDIA Quadro K1200 10.18.13.6191
NVIDIA Quadro M1000M 10.18.13.5461
NVIDIA Quadro M2000 10.18.13.6191
72 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
List of Build and Supported Platforms - Marc 2017 Release

Graphics Board Graphics Driver Version


NVIDIA Quadro M2000M 10.18.13.5413
NVIDIA Quadro M5000M 10.18.13.5413
NVIDIA Quadro M6000 24G 10.18.13.6191
Quadro FX 1800M 6001.18
Quadro FX 2700M 11.65
Quadro 6000 270.71

Peripheral Devices
3DCONNEXION’s SpacePilot PRO, SpaceMouse PRO and SpaceNavigator products, have been tested with Mentat.
For Linux based systems, see the Marc Mentat Installation and Operations Guide for additional information.
Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017 73
Security Notes

Security Notes
The 2017 release requires the FlexLM 11.9 server version and stores the license manager (lmgrd) by default in the
directory C:\MSC Software\MSC.Licensing\11.9 for Microsoft Windows and for Linux platforms it is
/msc/MSC.Licensing/11.9/bin. The default location for the license file is MSC.Licensing/licenses.

The capabilities that require a license are given below with feature names as required in the license file.

1. MARC license required to run one single processor job or one instance of a
multiple processor (parallel) job.
2. MARC_Parallel license required per processor in a parallel run (either DDM, or parallel
element assembly and stress recovery, or parallel CASI).
3. MARC_Mesh2D license required for each run requiring automatic 2-D remeshing feature
in Marc.
4. MARC_Mesh3D license required for each run requiring automatic 3-D remeshing feature
in Marc.
5. MARC_ShapeMemory license required for each run using shape memory model.
6. MARC_MetalCutting license required for each run modeling metal cutting operation.
7. MARC_Electrical license required for Joule-Mechanical, Coupled Electrostatic- Structural,
and Piezoelectricity.
8. MARC_GPU license required to use the GPGPU solver capability.
9. MARC_CASI license required to use the CASI iterative solver.
10. MARC_Hexmesh license required for each instance of Hexahedral mesher.
11. MARC_MatFit license required for advanced material data fitting.
12. MARC_PhaseTrans license required for MICROSTRUCTURE phase transformation model.
13. Mentat license required for each instance of Mentat.
14. Mentat_Parasolid_CAD license required for each instance of Parasolid when working
(import/export/meshing) with Parasolid based models. This license does
NOT allow the creation of solid geometry or the modification of solid
geometry through Booloean operations, blending, and/or feature
recognition and removal.
15. Mentat_Parasolid_Modeling license required for each instance of Parasolid when working
(import/export/creation/modification/ meshing) with Parasolid based
models.
16. Mentat_ITI_Access license required for each instance of, or exporting a file using the DXF,
IGES, or VDAFS translators.
17. Mentat_CMOLD license required for each instance of CMOLD when working
(import/export) with CMOLD based models.
18. Mentat_Geometry_Translators license required for import of Parasolid, IGES, IDEAS, ACIS, STEP,
STL to Parasolid Geometry with cleanup of model.
74 Marc and Mentat Release Guide 2017
Mentat License Surrender

19. Mentat_CATIAV4_Access license required for import of CATIAV4 model to Parasolid Geometry
with cleanup of model.
20. Mentat_CATIAV5_Access license required for import of CATIAV5 model to Parasolid Geometry
with cleanup of model.
21. Mentat_Creo_Access license required for import of Creo and Pro/E model to Parasolid
Geometry with cleanup of model.
22. Mentat_Inventor_Access license required for import of Inventor model to Parasolid Geometry with
cleanup of model.
23. Mentat_JT_Access license required for import of JT model to Parasolid Geometry with
cleanup of model.
24. Mentat_NX_Access license required for import of NX model to Parasolid Geometry with
cleanup of model.
25. Mentat_SolidWorks_Access license required for import of SolidWorks model to Parasolid Geometry
with cleanup of model.

Mentat License Surrender


If the Mentat 2017 program is inactive (no mouse movement and no active command) for a period of TIMEOUT, then
Mentat can optionally release its licenses to the license pool. This allows other users to have access to these licenses.
This capability is only available if the user has explicitly asked for it when initiating Mentat using the
-license_release command and the time (in minutes) to set the time period for TIMEOUT. The smallest
TIMEOUT value that can be specified is 2 minutes. If the option is not used, then licenses remain checked out until
the Mentat session ends. If Mentat releases its licenses upon reaching the time out period, the program locks and upon
clicking the unlock button, it will try to redraw the licenses that it had previously checked out. If these licenses are no
longer available (because another user has them checked out), a message will be issued and you may wait until the
licenses are freed by the other users. See Marc Mentat Installation and Operations Guide for additional information.

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