2023 – a Year of Magnitude and Direction

2023 marked year 15 for Endurica.  If I had to pick one word to describe the past year, that word would be “vector”.  Because magnitude and direction.  😊

We updated our core value statement this year.  The first one I ever wrote as part of Endurica’s original business plan listed 3 values: technical leadership, customer focus, and trustworthiness.  Those values served us well for many years and in many ways shaped who we have become.  But it was important this year to take stock again.  We’ve grown 8-fold since I wrote those down!  So our team spent many hours revisiting our shared values and deliberating over which will best define our culture and steer us right going forward.  In the end, we decided to keep the first 3, and we added 3 more:  embrace the grit, make an impact, and better every day.

We also completed an exercise to articulate what makes Endurica truly unique in the CAE / durability simulation space.  The 3 words we chose are… Accurate, Complete, and Scalable.

  • Accurate refers to the accurate material models that capture rubber’s many “special effects”, the accurate critical plane analysis method for analyzing multiaxial history, the accurate handling of nonlinear relationships between global input load channels and local crack experiences, and the extensive set of validation cases that have demonstrated our accuracy over the years. Nobody offers a more accurate solution for rubber durability.
  • Complete refers to our complete coverage of infinite life, safe life and damage tolerant approaches to testing and simulation. It refers to feature completeness that enables users to account for nearly any material behavior under nearly any service conditions.  Finally, it refers to the documentation, the materials database, and the examples we distribute with the software and with our webinar series.  Nobody offers a more complete solution for rubber durability.
  • Scalable refers to our capacity to apply our solutions efficiently in all circumstances. Scalability is the training we provide so that users can learn our tools quickly.  Scalability is access to powerful, ready-to-use workflows right when you need them.  Scalability is the modular approach we take to material testing and modeling so that simple problems can be solved cheaply and complex problems can be solved accurately in the same framework.  Scalability is our multi-threading that allows job execution time to be accelerated to complete impactful analysis on tough deadlines.  Nobody offers a more scalable solution for rubber durability.

2023 was not all navel-gazing and new marketing.  We also had magnitude and direction in other areas.

Top 10 Code Developments:

  1. New Endurica Architecture: After several years of development and a soft launch under the Katana project name, we finally completed our migration to the new architecture.  The new architecture provides a huge speed advantage for single thread and now for multithread execution. It uses a new input file format (.json). The json format makes it easier than ever for users to build customized and automated workflows via Python scripting.
  2. Sequence Effects: Sometimes the order of events matters to durability, and sometimes it doesn’t. We introduced Steps and Blocks to our input file, giving users complete control over the specification of multi-block, multi-step scheduling of load cases.  There is also a new output request that came out of this work: residual strength.
  3. EIE: 6 channels and support for RPC: Support for 6 channels of load input was one of our most highly requested new features.  Fast growing use of this feature led to further enhancements of the workflow (support for rpc file format, studies of map building techniques), and new recommendations on how to implement boundary conditions for specified rotation histories in explicit and implicit finite element models.
  4. Queuing: Design optimization studies need efficient management and execution of multiple jobs. Endurica’s software license manager now supports queueing for licenses. Queuing allows a submitted job to automatically wait to start until a license is available, instead of the prior behavior of exiting with a license error. Now you can submit many jobs without worrying about license availability.
  5. Haigh Diagram Improvements: We implemented an improved discretization of the Haigh diagram, and parallelized its evaluation. Now you get much nicer looking results in a fraction of the time. For details, check out our blog post on Haigh diagrams and also read about other improvements like axis limit setting and smoother contour plots.
  6. Viewer image copy: There is now a button! Its easier than ever to get your images into reports.
  7. Documentation Updates: We have been focusing on improving documentation this year. There are many new sections in the theory manual and user guide, as well as a getting started guide and more examples.  Stay tuned for many more examples coming in 2024!
  8. User Defined Planes: It is now possible to define your own set of planes for the critical plane search. One example where you might want to do this would be the situation where you would like to refine the critical plane search on a limited domain of the life sphere.
  9. New Database Materials: We added 7 new carbon black and silica filled EPDM compounds to the database. We are now up to 42 unique rubber compounds in the database.
  10. Uhyper Support: The new architecture now supports user-defined hyperelasticity. If you have a Uhyper subroutine for your finite element analysis, you can use it directly with Endurica.

 

Testing Hardware

We completed the acquisition and installation at ACE labs of a Coesfeld Instrumented Cut and Chip Analyser (ICCA).  The ICCA provides unmatched measurement and control of impact conditions, and provides a way to evaluate rubber compounds for their resistance to cutting and chipping.

 

Applications, Case Studies, Webinars

Never underestimate the students! We were blown away by the work of undergraduates at the University of Calgary with our tools and Ansys.  The students designed an airless tire, completing durability simulations using Endurica software within the scope of a senior design project. They were able to Get Durability Right on a short timeline and a student budget. Check out their multi-objective, high-performance design project here.

Analyzing what happens to tires as they take on the most celebrated testing track in the world might have been the funnest project Endurica’s engineers tackled in 2023. We presented the technical details at The Tire Society annual meeting and more in a followup webinar. An extensive Q&A session followed, and I loved the final question: “So, how long before we have a dashboard display of ‘miles to tire failure’ in our cars?”  Bring it.  We are ready!

Our Winning on Durability webinar series hit a nerve with the Metal Fatigue DOES NOT EQUAL Rubber Fatigue episodes on mean strain (the tendency of larger mean strains to significantly INCREASE the fatigue life of some rubbers!) and linear superposition (for converting applied load inputs to corresponding stress/strain responses). The great response has lead to our third installment on the differences between rubber and metal fatigue with an upcoming presentation on temperature effects.

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The New Endurica Architecture – It’s Time to Migrate

Our transition to a new software architecture is a vital move in navigating the dynamic technological landscape. In a recent webinar, we discussed the aspects of this transition, providing insights into the why and how of adopting a new architectural approach despite having a functional existing one. This post will highlight the motivations behind the shift, the present status of feature migration, alterations in the latest software release, and an overview of projects within this new framework.

The Rationale and Benefits

Why Overhaul?

The complete rewrite of our software’s architecture was not a decision made lightly. The reasoning extends beyond merely wanting a refresh; it was driven by pivotal motivations, primarily surrounding the necessity for speed and efficiency in executing computing processes. Speed is invariably tied to productivity and operational fluency in software and technology. The plot below illustrates a compelling story: the old architecture (represented by the blue line), exhibited a static runtime, regardless of the number of threads engaged, revealing its inability to utilize parallel processing. Contrastingly, the new architecture demonstrates a significant speed-up, even with just a single thread, and scales to allow an increase in speed by many multiples, contingent on thread capacity.

Solving Larger Problems

The pursuit of faster execution isn’t arbitrary; it is intrinsically linked to our objective of solving larger problems. With larger tasks and projects on the horizon, scaling up and utilizing more CPU threads became essential. Exemplified through a job run on a virtual machine with 96 available CPU threads, the linear decrease in runtime with increasing threads (until certain hardware limitations are met) exhibits the new architecture’s adept handling of larger jobs (see plot below). The capability to scale and manage tasks of escalating complexity and size was a crucial driver for our transition.

Enhancing Integrations and Streamlining Workflows

Then, we turned our attention toward improving the user experience in interfacing with our software. Our prior use of the HFI and HFO file formats, while functional, presented numerous challenges regarding modification and integration, particularly when scripted modifications were necessary. The new architecture employs the JSON file format, widely recognized for its robustness and versatility across various industries and applications. With JSON, modifying job inputs and managing data become significantly simplified, as illustrated by a Python script example, wherein the entirety of job modifications, inputs, and submissions can be seamlessly handled with a handful of lines of code.

Improved Usability and Real-Time Error Checking

In an effort to enhance usability and mitigate the common issue of erroneous entries and syntax use, the new architecture, especially when utilized with a text editor like VS Code, offers real-time checking and syntax suggestions. This not only makes job submission more precise but also substantially reduces the trial-and-error cycle, saving valuable time. Additionally, upon job submission, the new architecture performs rigorous error and syntax checks, ensuring smooth execution and user experience.

Comprehensive Feature Migration: A Successful Transition

Reflecting on the past two years, we have accomplished a near-complete feature migration to the new software architecture, with 99% of features now successfully transitioned. This includes all outlined output requests, material models, history types, and various procedures.
Our commitment to supporting multiple interfaces remains, with support for Abaqus, Ansys, and Marc using the new architecture. Furthermore, Endurica Viewer is fully compatible, providing enhanced visualization capabilities under the new system.
The comprehensive migration and the incorporation of new functionalities marks the new architecture as fully operational and ready for use across all undertakings.

Implementation of Directory and Execution Changes in Endurica Software

Refined Directory Structure

In efforts to provide a seamless transition and user experience with the upgraded Endurica software, modifications have been made to the directory structure. The new architecture, once labeled “Katana” during its development phase, has now been ubiquitously integrated into the top-level Endurica directory. With the most recent software installation, users will observe the top-level CL and DT directories contain the new architecture, and the Katana directory has been removed.

Consequently, when we refer to Endurica CL and Endurica DT moving forward, it denotes reference to the new architecture.

Accommodating Transition: The Legacy Folder

Acknowledging that the transition to the new architecture may not be instantaneous for all users, the old architecture will still be available and designated within a “Legacy” folder. Though it requires navigation into subfolders, we ensure its accessibility for users who need more time to transition fully into the new structure.

Executable Naming Conventions

In tandem with the directory adjustments, executable naming conventions have been revised to be more intuitive. Previously, “endurica” was employed to submit fatigue analyses in the old architecture, while “katana” pertained to the new. To streamline, “katana” has been rebranded as “endurica” for submitting the JSON input file, with the legacy version adopting the name “endurica-legacy.” It is crucial to note that users accustomed to utilizing “katana” may continue to do so — “endurica” and “katana” will run the same executable. However, usage of the old architecture requires invoking a new “endurica-legacy” command.

Delivering the Unattainable with Endurica’s New Software Architecture

Embarking upon two recent projects with our new computational architecture, we explored the realms of virtual simulation and data management in tire durability and elastomeric mount durability performance.

Project 1: Tire Durability with Dassault Systems

In collaboration with Dassault Systems, a multi-body dynamic simulation was conducted to compute tire durability at the Nurburgring circuit. Utilizing SIMPACK for generating virtual road load data and employing Endurica EIE and Abaqus to establish a workspace map of driving conditions, the endeavor yielded significant data, processed through 176,000 time steps to evaluate the tire’s fatigue life. After a meticulous analysis, the results spotlighted the fatigue life to be 214 laps, pinpointing the most critical point around the tire bead edge.

Project 2: Durability of an Elastomeric Mount with Ford

Undertaken with Ford, the second project navigated through the durability performance of an elastomeric mount, involving a behemoth of data from 144 load history files, each load file containing tens or hundreds of thousands of time points, accumulating to over 15 million total time points. Utilizing a similar approach as the Nurburgring project, Endurica EIE and Abaqus were used together to generate the strain history data. The analysis focused on membrane elements on the mount’s free surfaces to precisely gauge surface strains. Culminating the analysis, the project succeeded in qualifying the part with a fatigue life of 9.4 repeats of the entire schedule, wherein the requisite was just one repeat.

These projects underscored the capabilities of our new architecture, navigating through large data sets and providing tangible insights in significantly reduced timeframes compared to the old architecture. In essence, the implementation of the new architecture has not only streamlined our processes but also expanded our horizons in handling large data and achieving nuanced analyses in our projects.

Summary

The new Endurica CL and Endurica DT architectures have now fully replaced our old system, maintaining the accuracy our users expect while introducing an easier, more powerful, and scalable solution. Everything has been successfully migrated over to this complete solution. With its enhanced capabilities, it addresses problems that were previously too large or took too long to solve, enabling our customers to tackle challenges they might not have considered before. The ability to solve unprecedented problems is just one more example of our steadfast commitment to providing accurate, complete, and scalable solutions.

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License Queueing

Design optimization studies are driving a need to support the efficient management and execution of many jobs.  This is why we are announcing that Endurica’s software license manager now supports queueing for licenses. This allows a submitted job to automatically wait to start until enough licenses are available, instead of the prior behavior of exiting with a license error. Now you can submit many jobs without worrying about license availability.

License queueing is only available for network licenses (not node-locked). It is currently supported for Katana CL/DT jobs and EIE jobs submitted from a command prompt.

To enable queueing, set the environment variable RLM_QUEUE to any value. This environment variable must be set on the client machine (not the license server).

To learn more about license queueing, search for “How to Queue for Licenses” in the RLM License Administration documentation here: https://www.reprisesoftware.com/RLM_License_Administration.pdf

 

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Busting Myths About Endurica

Myths vs Facts on Endurica, Test your knowledge about Endurica

True or False? Test your knowledge about Endurica

Endurica is only a software company.
False. While Endurica is perhaps best known for its game-changing fatigue solver software, we also deliver industry-leading testing services, testing instruments, and training.  If you need durability for elastomers, we are uniquely positioned to bring you winning capabilities.

Endurica is used by the majority of top rubber product makers.
True.  As of the 2021 Rubber News global rankings report, 6 of the top 9 global rubber product makers are using Endurica solutions to characterize and simulate durability.

Endurica invented Critical Plane Analysis.
False, but...  Critical Plane Analysis – the technology that gives best accuracy fatigue life predictions under complex multiaxial loading – was originally pioneered by the metals fatigue community.  But Endurica does hold the patent on the first Critical Plane Analysis algorithm suitable for elastomers, and we are the world leaders in making the technology available to product developers.

Wohler curve based methods are just as accurate and competitive as Endurica’s Critical Plane / Fracture Mechanics-based method.
False. Wohler curve based methods suffer from many problems that are solved by the Critical Plane Method.  1) they often assume a wrong crack orientation rather than searching for the most damaging scenario, 2) they do not account properly for mode of deformation effects, 3) the testing program required to populate a Wohler curve scales poorly and has poor repeatability.

I don’t need Endurica software if I already have a metal fatigue code (nCode DesignLife, FEMFAT, MSC Fatigue, and fe-safe).
False. Metals and elastomers have completely distinct molecular structures and behaviors.  While metals operate at small strain, elastomers tend to operate at large strain.  Where metals exhibit linear elasticity, elastomers exhibit nonlinear behavior.  Using a metal fatigue code for analyzing elastomer fatigue is like trying to use a car as a boat: you can certainly drive the car into the water, but you end up on the bottom of the lake.

Endurica solvers work with Ansys, Simulia, and Hexagon simulation platforms
True. We maintain software development partnerships with the major finite element software vendors so that we can offer easy to use pre-and post- integrations with Ansys, Abaqus, and MSC/Marc.  You can use the Endurica workflows with the finite element code that works for you.  We also develop the fe-safe/Rubber plugin.

Everyone knows you can simulate durability.
False. We’re always surprised by the number of people at conferences and trade shows who don’t know that simulating the durability of rubber is even possible.  Our tools simulate everything from basic constant amplitude cyclic loading, to variable amplitude, multiaxial loading (up to 6 input channels!), ageing, strain crystallization, ozone attack, cyclic softening, creep crack growth, self-heating, block cycle schedules, residual life.  Our multi-threading capabilities mean that large jobs can execute quickly.  Our solvers are fast enough to compute damage in real-time for a full finite element model!

Endurica solutions have had significant commercial impact.
True.  Endurica was founded in 2008 to reduce rubber product launch cost and risk and we have saved our clients millions of dollars.  Endurica’s impact was recognized with the prestigious U.S. Small Business Administration Tibbetts award.

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Things that went right in 2020 at Endurica

Things that went right in 2020 at Endurica

2020 is burned in all our minds as a chaotic and tough year.  Just like the rest of the world, Endurica staff experienced times of isolation and loss due to the pandemic.  On a positive note, we invested heavily in making our tools and workflows better than ever so that we’re ready to come back strong in 2021.  Here is a list of our top new developments in 2020:

Endurica Software Enhancements

  • Endurica DT’s new Ageing Feature now enables you to simulate how ageing affects your rubber product. Your compound’s stiffness, strength, and fatigue properties can all evolve with time.
  • Our new Linux distribution takes our solutions beyond the Windows world.
  • We’ve added an encryption feature to safeguard your trade secrets.
  • Viewer Improvements make it easier than ever to visualize your fatigue simulation results.
  • EIE Enhancements give you blazing-fast compute speed for full road-load signals.
  • We’ve also planned an aggressive development agenda for 2021. Stay tuned for a new Endurica-based smartphone app for materials engineers, for a new feature that computes fatigue threshold safety margins, for a new block cycle schedule extraction algorithm, and more!

Training

  • The new Fatigue Ninja Friday webinar series provides step-by-step application training for key the workflows that you need to get durability right. All of the recorded episodes are now available in the online Endurica academy.
  • The new Winning on Durability webinar series provides high-level overviews of both technical and business topics so you can connect Endurica tools to your strategic imperatives. All of these recorded webinars are available gratis on our website.
  • We’ve recast our in-person training events as LIVE, ONLINE workshops accessible safely around the world.

Testing Instruments

Fatigue Property Mapping Testing Service

  • We added the Reliability Module to our Fatigue Property Mapping testing service. Use it to quantify crack precursor size statistics when you need to estimate probability of failure.
  • We also reorganized the Thermal Module and the Ageing Module into Basic and Advanced levels, to offer a lower price-point when a basic option will suffice.

Want to leverage any of these new capabilities in your next durability project?  Give us a call and let’s talk!

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Endurica 2019 Updates Released

Endurica CL

Endurica CL received many improvements over the past year.  These improvements cover a wide variety of different aspects of the software:

Reducing Run-time

Our investments in code benchmarking and performance are paying off! We’ve been able to make internal optimizations to the code that reduce analysis run-times by approximately 30%. 

HFM and HFO Formatting

To make our output cleaner and more meaningful, small changes have been made to the number formatting in the HFM and HFO files.

All results reported in scientific notation are now formatted in standard form where the leading digit before the decimal point is non-zero (previously the leading digit was always zero).  This gives one more significant figure to all the results without increasing the output file size.

Signal compression

The shortest fatigue life for the analysis is now printed to the console and HFM file with six significant figures.  Previously, the life was reported with only two significant figures.  This change makes it easier to quickly compare two different analyses, especially when the analyses have similar fatigue lives.

New features have been added to Endurica CL to make it easier to process and analyze histories.  Using the new COMPRESS_HISTORY output request, you can generate new HFI files containing compressed versions of your original history.  The generated history is composed of the rainflow counted cycles from your original history.  An optional output parameter allows you to further compress the signal by specifying the minimum percentage of the original damage that should be retained in the new history.  When keeping a percentage of the damage, the cycles are sorted from most to least damaging so that the generated history always contains the most damaging cycles and discards the least damaging cycles.

This output request is useful when you want to reduce a long complex history while keeping the important damaging cycles.  This can reduce file sizes and simplify experimental testing setups as well as give you a deeper insight into your duty cycle. 

Endurica DT

Endurica DT is our incremental fatigue solver.  With Endurica CL, your analysis starts at time zero and integrates the given strain history until end-of-life.  With Endurica DT, you can start and end at a series of times that you specify.  This lets you accumulate many different histories and loading conditions repeatedly until end-of-life.

With Endurica DT, it allows you to start and end at a series of times, when specified.

Endurica DT gives you new ways to control your analyses, and we have been using it over the past year in many applications.  For example, fatigue results for laboratory test procedures that involve multiple loading stages (such as FMVSS No. 139 for light vehicle tires, or block cycle schedules for automotive component applications) can be fully simulated using Endurica DT. You can also compute residual life following some scheduled set of load cases. 

Endurica DT can also be used to accumulate the actual loads measured on a part in situ.  This allows you to create a digital twin that keeps a near real-time record of the part’s current simulated damage state and the part’s remaining fatigue life. 

Stiffness Loss Co-Simulation

Endurica DT now includes a stiffness loss co-simulation workflow that allows you to iteratively update the stiffness of your part over a series of time steps, based on the amount of damage occurring in the part.  The stiffness loss is computed per element so you will have a gradient where the more damaged regions become softer.  Endurica DT computes the current fraction h of stiffness loss based on the stress and strain, and the finite element solver computes the stress and strain based on the current fractions of stiffness loss. The capability accurately predicts the effects of changing mode of control during a fatigue test.  For example, stress controlled fatigue tests show shorter life than strain controlled fatigue tests. 

Endurica DT now includes a stiffness loss co-simulation workflow

Endurica EIE

Endurica EIE, our efficient interpolation engine, quickly generates long, complex histories using a set of precomputed finite element results (i.e. the ‘nonlinear map’).  We first launched EIE last year with the ability to interpolate 1-channel and 2-channel problems.  We have recently added the ability to interpolate 3-channel problems. 

In the example below, EIE was benchmarked with three-channels.  Three separate road load signals were computed from a single nonlinear map.  With EIE, you don’t need to rerun the finite element model for each history.  Instead, EIE interpolates from the nonlinear map, providing the equivalent results with a 60x speed-up in compute time. 

Endurica EIE interpolates from the nonlinear map, providing the equivalent results
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