Capabilities of the Zebulon Modeling Software

The current version 8.0 of Zebulon includes many modes of operation for the analysis of non-linear structural and material problems. Some of these are listed below.

Meshing

Zebulon is not intended to be a state of the art meshing / solid modeling tool as many other packages are already providing excellent solutions for that application. We are instead concentrating our efforts on providing tools which are easy to use for small meshing tasks, and including import capabilities for various standard mesh formats.
  • Automated triangular or all quadrilateral (paving) meshes
  • Utilities for 3D solid modeling
  • IGES geometry import/export
  • import of Cosmos GFM and ABAQUS mesh formats
  • Integrated drafting with Motif or native NT GUI
  • GUI tools for mesh manipulation

Optimization

 The Z-set optimizer has a general interface with several ways of evaluating the "function" to minimize. The optimization can be used for shape optimization of course, but is usually used for characterization of material coefficients and solution of inverse boundary conditions.

For material characterization any number of test results can be compared to simulations (FEA or representitive volume element) to provide the best comprehensive fit of the experimental results.

  • Complex formulations of error functions, including simultaneous comparison of many different test results
  • Modified Levenberg-Marquardt methods for fitting
  • Simplex, SQP,BFGS and mixed constrained optimization methods
  • Genetic and simulated annealing methods
  • Total compatibility with material models and geometry optimization

Simulation

The simulation module is used to run various loading histories through a material law in order that efficient testing of a behavior can be done outside of finite element analysis.
  • Arbitrary variable models in differential or explicit forms
  • Special functions for mechanical behavior (mixed stress/strain and yield surfaces)
  • Uses same models as FEM code
  • Includes ZebFront pre-processor language for model development

Materials Models

An overview of some of the material models available follows. A more detailed list is given on the Materials page.
  • Linear thermo-elasticity
  • Hyper elastic incompressible materials (Mooney, Rivlin, etc)
  • Generalized Maxwell Viscoelasticity
  • Porous plasticity (Gurson, Rousselier, etc) for damage or powder compaction
  • Bathe-Etrovic model for large strain multiplicative plasticity
  • Complete Chaboche model with coupled damage in explicit/implicit integration
  • MATMOD model of Miller
  • Bodner-Partom visco-plastic model
  • SUVIC, SUVIC-D model of rock with damage
  • Classical Creep
  • Micro mechanical models for single and poly crystals
  • Composite materials, including anisotropic viscoplasticity with damage
  • Implicit/Explicit integration with consistent tangent matrices
  • Cosserat continuum
  • Anisotropic thermal and diffusion materials

Finite element calculations

  • All standard 2D/3D element geometries with generalized plane strain and shell formulations
  • No size limits. 100K DOFs in non-linear is easily possible on a PC.
  • Non-linear Finite Element Solution with BFGS, Modified Newton, Riks, etc.
  • Thermal stationary or transient analysis
  • Diffusion with moving Stefan boundaries
  • Dynamic (implicit with contact) and Eigen frequency analysis
  • Fluid-structure interfaces
  • "Weak" coupling of problem types (e.g thermal, diffusion, and mechanical)
  • Complex boundary conditions (eg. pressure, gravity, deformation rate)
  • 2D/3D multiple zone contact using the associated stiffness method
  • Multi-point constraints (equivalent DOFs, incompatible and mixed dimension meshes, symmetry, periodic, constant volume cavities)
  • Large strain formulations (Total/Updated Lagrangian, mixed incompressible)
  • User defined boundary conditions output routines, element formulations, material laws and global solutions
  • Generalized coefficients as random values or functions of parameters
  • Fracture mechanics techniques including J, delta J, crack growth, etc.
  • Needleman debonding with post-debond contact activation
  • Parallel capabilities using an advanced FETI solver.

Post-processor

  • Full graphical presentation of analysis
  • User creation of secondary variables including complex post calculations
  • Deformed rendering, Contours, Contours by element, Contours by material, Integration point values, fluid vectors, etc.
  • Compatible with user added options
  • Extract curves for exporting to spreadsheets
  • Enhanced metafile copies on NT, and encapsulated postscript exports
  • Animations using uniform time steps
  • Broken element elimination

Post-Calculations

  • Post-analysis for fatigue life, creep, crack growth
  • Life prediction models
  • Extract tabulated ASCII output
  • Generate user defined secondary values from results
  • Observe evolution of yield surfaces in structures

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