Release Highlights
SACS Fatigue and Marine License Consolidation
Effective April 1, 2023, significant changes will be made to the way SACS is licensed. An overview of these changes is provided below.
What is changing?
With SACS 23.00.00.01, some licensing has been changed. SACS Fatigue (Fatigue, Fatigue Advanced - Dynamic Response, Fatigue Advanced - Wave Response, Fatigue Ultimate) and SACS Marine modules (Marine, Marine Advanced, Marine Ultimate) have been consolidated into SACS Fatigue Ultimate and SACS Marine Ultimate. Now when any Fatigue or Marine feature is used, SACS Fatigue Ultimate or SACS Marine Ultimate license will be used.
| Current Product | Consolidated Product |
|---|---|
| SACS Fatigue | SACS Fatigue Ultimate |
| SACS Fatigue Advanced – Dynamic Response | SACS Fatigue Ultimate |
| SACS Fatigue Advanced – Wave Response | SACS Fatigue Ultimate |
| SACS Fatigue Ultimate | SACS Fatigue Ultimate |
| SACS Marine | SACS Marine Ultimate |
| SACS Marine Advanced | SACS Marine Ultimate |
| SACS Marine Ultimate | SACS Marine Ultimate |
Who is affected by this change?
All clients with perpetual licenses of any SACS Fatigue or SACS Marine modules under SELECT have been automatically upgraded to the full SACS Fatigue Ultimate and/or SACS Marine Ultimate license. There was no charge for this upgrade.
How does this change affect existing contracts and license entitlements?
Along with this license consolidation, there was a price adjustment. All users have been upgraded to full SACS Fatigue Ultimate and/or SACS Marine Ultimate licenses, equal to the largest number of any Fatigue or Marine module licenses they owned. There was no charge for this upgrade at the time this change was made; however, please note that the change to licensing a single product rather than individual modules necessitated a change in the way the cost of annual SELECT is determined, which will be reflected in future SELECT invoices, beginning April 2023.
Why is this change being made?
This consolidation is part of a Bentley initiative to simplify our product portfolio and improve the buying and user experience for our products. The new annual SELECT and Virtuoso subscription prices are better aligned with the subscription prices of the other products in Bentley's portfolio.
What is the value of this change for SACS users?
After the consolidation, SACS users will be able to: - Access all SACS Fatigue features if they previously owned a SACS Fatigue, Fatigue Advanced, or Fatigue Ultimate license. - Access all SACS Marine features if they previously owned a SACS Marine, Marine Advanced, or Marine Ultimate license.
Does this change affect configuration of SACS license usage alerts?
CONNECT Licensing allows you to set threshold limits to trigger warnings when you are about to overuse a license. You may have already done this for your SACS Fatigue and SACS Marine licenses. The consolidated SACS Fatigue and SACS Marine licenses are associated with the SACS Fatigue Ultimate and SACS Marine Ultimate licenses, so you may need to update your license threshold limits and user entitlements. For more information on how to update these threshold limits in the Subscription Entitlement Service (SES) Entitlement Management center, please see the Communities post below.
https://bentleysystems.service-now.com/community?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0019813
You are strongly advised to do this before installing and running SACS 23.00.00.01. Note that because the quarterly term license fees (the overuse charges) are now based on the full SACS Fatigue Ultimate and SACS Marine Ultimate license price rather than on the old license price for the individual modules, these fees could be significantly larger than in the past. Protect yourself against unintended overuse by properly setting the threshold limits.
SACS 64-Bit Update
SACS has been completely migrated to a 64-bit application, enabling more access to processing and memory resources on modern 64-bit (x64) computers. This update should increase performance when working with large data sets (> 4 GB).
In compliance with Microsoft's best practices, some installation changes have been made:
| Description | Path |
|---|---|
| Default Installation Directory | C:\Program Files\Bentley\Offshore\SACS 2023 |
| Public Documents (Demos, Samples, Section Libraries, etc.) | C:\Users\Public\Public Documents\Bentley\Offshore\SACS 2023 |
SACS will no longer be compatible with 32-bit (x86) architecture, so SACS's minimum requirement for this and future versions will be Windows 64-bit and 64-bit processors.
Significant Performance Improvements
Memory and disk use has been optimized in Gap, Pre, Post, and Wave Response to take advantage of all available RAM on modern 64-bit computers. This improvement reduces I/O on temporary analysis files which can significantly improve performance, especially on large models with many elements and load cases. Algorithmic improvements have also been made to the Post/Gap modules.
Up to 30x performance increase* may be achieved with Post 23.0. A representative run time performance improvement is shown below.
Post Benchmark Analysis
| Number of Joints | 11971 |
| Number of Elements | 23644 |
| Number of Load Cases | 135 |
| Post 16.0 Analysis Time | 5 min 56 s |
| Post 23.0 Analysis Time | 12 s |
| Performance Improvement | 30x |
*Results may vary depending on hardware and analysis.
SACS Model Export to ADINA
The SACS-ADINA Interop utility has been introduced as a technology preview through SACS Precede. Users may now export SACS model files to ADINA input files for Analysis in ADINA. Currently linear stiffness properties are only supported; additional input is required to perform a dynamic and/or non-linear analysis in ADINA. Refer the Utilities manual for more information about this feature.
Original SACS Model
Exported ADINA Model
ADINA Analytical Results
Improved Graphical Support for Shell Elements
Shell visualization has been greatly improved to support Joint Meshing with Shell Elements and enhanced MITC Shell Element solutions.
The resolution of the Shell element rendering may be modified in Display > Shell Mesh Density.
Shell Element with Minimum Shell Mesh Density (3x3)
Shell Element with Maximum Shell Mesh Density (9x9)
Shell Metrics may be rendered on the shell element for visualization and validation purposes with Display > Labeling Options > Elements > Shell Metric. Shell metrics include: • Distortion • Skew • Jacobian • Curvature • Area
Shell Elements Rendered with Shell Distortion Metric
Shell Results visualization has been added to Precede with Shell Results in Display > Labeling Options > Results. Visualization options include: • Internal Forces • Internal Stresses • Principal Stress • Von Mises Stress
Shell Von Mises Stress Visualization
Combined Seismic and Wave Response Analysis Workflow
Time history seismic responses may now be exported as a force time history input file which may be used as input for a combined Wave, Wind, and Force Time History Analysis. The force time history input file can be generated automatically by entering WVR in the THLOAD line of the Dynamic Response input file.
Additionally, multiple force time history input files may be specified to accommodate an additional force time history input file for wind turbine analyses. Enter an additional THLOAD line in the Wave Response input file to define an additional Force Time History input file.
Modal (Runge-Kutta) time integration has been added to Dynamic Superelement to improve agreement with the calculated response in Wave Response. Select the 'Modal Time Integration' time integration method on the DSEOP2 line. Additional modal time integration parameters are required with this option.
Non-linear Pile Soil Interaction in Wave Response
Wave Response Analyses may now be analyzed with a non-linear foundation instead of a linearized foundation in Time History analyses. You can enable this option by entering the NLFOPT line to your Wave Response Input file and selecting "PSI" in the foundation type option. Note that a linearized pilehead superelement file is still required to generate the linearized mode shapes.