Welcome to Multiframe Version 9.5
Formation Design Systems is very pleased to announce Version 9.5 of Multiframe. We value all the feedback we receive from our users of the software and this release incorporates a number of user requests for enhancements. The new version 9.5 release is currently being delivered to our Multiframe Subscription members.
Most Multiframe users are now choosing to participate in our subscription program so that they automatically receive software updates as they are released. A subscription also makes them eligible to receive our technical support services. If you are not currently a subscriber, we would urge you to review the information on our subscription program and consider renewing your subscription.
Multiframe continues to be used for a wide range of structural engineering designs all around the world. The hotel on the right was built in
Some of the enhancements in Version 9.5 of Multiframe include -
Buckling analysis
Enveloping
Clipping zones
- OpenGL Printing & Rendering
- More speed
- Renumbering
Navisworks export
- Section Maker
Buckling Analysis
A rational buckling analysis of a model can now be performed within Multiframe to determine elastic critical loads and the associated buckling modes of the frame. The basis of this type of analysis is to linearly scale a set of predefined member forces to determine the load required to cause the frame to become unstable and buckle. In Multiframe, the buckling analysis uses the results of a user specified reference load case to provide the member actions to be scaled to cause buckling. This means that the results of the buckling are dependent not only upon the elastic behaviour of the frame but also upon the distribution of member actions within the frame.
Member effective lengths and effective length factors are also determined during a buckling analysis. These effective lengths are based on the critical buckling load of the model and will tend to be larger than those based on the critical load of the individual member.
The buckling analysis in Multiframe is actually formulated as an Eigenvalue problem. Two methods for solving these types of problems are available to the user for performing a buckling analysis: Inverse Iteration method and the Jacobi method. The Inverse Iteration method is an iterative technique suitable for the analysis of very large models. However, it is limited to finding only the first buckling mode. The Jacobi solver on the other hand can find many buckling modes but is only suited to smaller models as it does take more time to run.
Buckling analysis is only available in Multiframe 3D and Multiframe 4D. Multiframe 2D users can upgrade to either 3D or 4D for the difference in price between the different versions.
With the inclusion of buckling analysis, the commands and dialogs in Multiframe 3D related to analysis have been modified. Separate menu commands for linear and nonlinear analysis are no longer provided. Instead a single Analysis command is now used to invoke the Analyse dialog from where the user can specify which analyses are to be performed and for the settings associated with those analyses.
One advantage of this change is that the various reporting options at the bottom of this dialog will allow information about analyses to be output to the Report window. For a nonlinear analysis this information can be particularly useful when tracking down problems related to non-convergence of the analysis.
Enveloping
Envelopes of static load cases are now supported within Multiframe via the inclusion of Envelope load cases into the software.
An Envelope case can be added to a model by defining which of a selected number of load cases are to be included in the envelope. In addition you can choose to envelope with either the linear or nonlinear results of the load cases.
The plotting of Envelope cases plots both the positive and negative envelope of actions along members. When preferences are set to draw filled plots, the action envelope is filled and the actions from each of the enveloped cases are overlayed as a solid line. The plots for the enveloped cases may be hidden by turning of the “Show Enveloped Cases” option in the Symbols dialog.
Clipping Zones
Clipping regions can now be saved as a Clipping Zone within Multiframe. These zones can then be used later to restore the clipping to a desired region. This is particularly useful when working with 3D models as separate zones can be defined for various 2D frames or floor levels that make up the model. Each of these frames can then be readily accessed by simply changing clipping zones.
Many users may be unaware that Multiframe supports selective reporting in the printed summary report. Clipping can be a good way to narrow your view on the structure, then select the members you wish to report on, and use the "Print Selected Members" option when printed the summary report. You can also use the Clipping Invisible option to restrict the views in any of the Data or Result tables to only the visible members on-screen.
OpenGL Printing & Rendering
Printing of graphical windows now supports the printing of OpenGL renderings of the model. In conjunction with this, some extra options have been added to the Member Modelling dialog to give the user greater control of the automatic trimming of members used when rendering the frame. In addition, the user can now override the automatic trimming and directly specify the trimmed length at the end of the member.Bitmap export gives you the ability to export rendered Frame, Plot and Load views to a bitmap file. This is similar to Edit | Copy (Copy to Clipboard) however, the File | Export | Bitmap Image allows you to specify the size of the image to be exported; the larger the size, the better the quality.
More Speed
Although computers are getting faster and faster, it's not too hard to find a larger problem that will take a little more time to solve than you would like. This is particularly the case when it comes to dynamic analysis. With that in mind we have made some improvements to the way the solver works in Multiframe and also done some fine tuning on the graphics display.These enhancements have improved the general performance of the program - drawing in the graphical windows is significantly faster and selection of items more responsive. These optimisations have also produced a reduction of the time taken to analyse a model. The improvement in analysis times is particularly noticeable if you are working with large frames and a large number of time steps in time history analysis.
Renumbering
The functionality of the renumbering command has been extended to give the user improved control over the renumbering process. The user can now specify the primary, secondary and tertiary sort directions used as the basis for renumbering. This includes the flexibility to specify an ascending or descending sort order in each direction.
NavisWorks Export
Multiframe now supports export of 3D models to NavisWorks. NavisWorks provides real-time walk-through and inspection of large CAD models. This is particularly useful for presentations and for checking very large models. The model exported not only contains the correct geometry and colours from the Multiframe model, it also contains member attributes such as section name, length etc.
Formation Design Systems now sells and supports NavisWorks so please contact us if you are interested in this software. You can also find more information on NavisWorks at www.navisworks.com.
Section Maker
We are continuing to make improvements to Section Maker in this release. We are endeavouring to make Section Maker more accurately represent the exact shapes of sections as well as make it easier to mange larger libraries with more custom sections.
The Convert to Polygon command has been extended to include the conversion of open polygons to closed polygons. The Groups and Sections windows have been replaced with a single window called the Library Window. The contents of the old windows are now separate tables within this window. A new Material Table has been included in the Library Window. This table lists properties of all the materials in the current library. The format of the sections library has been updated to allow for future improvements to the software and data within the library is now stored with double precision. For compatibility with older versions of the software options are available to export sections to libraries in older formats.
