Orcina news

We are very pleased to announce the release of OrcaFlex version 11.1. The software was finalised and built on 12^th February. We originally planned to release 11.1 in Q4 of 2020. However, we delayed the release in order to complete the restart analysis development. We plan to make the next release in the traditional Q4 slot, later this year.

All clients with up-to-date MUS contracts will receive, in the week starting 22^nd February, an e-mail with instructions on how to download the new version.

Version 11.1 introduces much new functionality, including:

• Restart analysis, variation models, and change tracking
• Turbine pre-bend
• Turbine range graphs
• Hysteretic and externally calculated axial and torsional line stiffness
• Performance improvements for wave time history analysis
• Wire frame drawings specified by panels
• Embedded Python scripts as an alternative to external files
• OrcaWave intermediate results
• OrcaWave target roll damping
• OrcaWave performance improvements

These are the most significant developments, in our opinion. As always there are more enhancements that are not listed here. All new features are fully documented in the what’s new topics:

• OrcaFlex
• OrcaWave

Continue reading “OrcaFlex 11.1 released”

We have just released a minor upgrade to OrcaFlex, version 11.0g. Version 11.0g fixes a number of bugs in both OrcaFlex and OrcaWave. Full details of the changes are described in the documentation:

• OrcaFlex
• OrcaWave

We recommend that all users of 11.0 upgrade to 11.0g.

A patch to upgrade from earlier 11.0 releases can be downloaded here. The full installation program can also be downloaded from your Orcina download page. Please contact us if you do not have the link to your Orcina download page.

We aim to release a major OrcaFlex update in Q4 of each year. This year we are not going to achieve this goal, and version 11.1 will now be released early in 2021. We hope and expect that we will be able to do this in January or February.

The most significant new feature in 11.1 will be restart analysis. We are excited to be adding restarts, and development is very well advanced and progressing smoothly. However, it is such a broad feature, and impacts almost all existing functionality in the program, that development and testing has taken a long time. We considered releasing 11.1 without restarts in Q4 2020 to fit in with our schedule goals. We decided that it is preferable to delay the release a couple of months and ensure that restart analysis is included.

As well as delaying the OrcaFlex release, we have decided also to push the user group meetings into the new year. As previously announced these will be virtual because of the pandemic. Our intention is that these meetings will run around the same time as the OrcaFlex release.

Continue reading “OrcaFlex 11.1 release schedule”

We have just released a minor upgrade to OrcaFlex, version 11.0f. Version 11.0f fixes a number of bugs in both OrcaFlex and OrcaWave. Full details of the changes are described in the documentation:

• OrcaFlex
• OrcaWave

We recommend that all users of 11.0 upgrade to 11.0f.

A patch to upgrade from earlier 11.0 releases can be downloaded here. The full installation program can also be downloaded from your Orcina download page. Please contact us if you do not have the link to your Orcina download page.

We have just released a minor upgrade to OrcaFlex, version 11.0e. Version 11.0e fixes a number of bugs in both OrcaFlex and OrcaWave. Full details of the changes are described in the documentation:

• OrcaFlex
• OrcaWave

We recommend that all users of 11.0 upgrade to 11.0e.

A patch to upgrade from earlier 11.0 releases can be downloaded here. The full installation program can also be downloaded from your Orcina download page. Please contact us if you do not have the link to your Orcina download page.

We have decided, in light of the Coronavirus pandemic, that this year we will not run our annual series of OrcaFlex user group meetings in person. These events require significant advance planning and unfortunately there is just too much uncertainty to do that.

Instead of physical meetings we will run virtual meetings as webinars. We have not finalised details for these yet, but we expect to run them in October or November, to coincide with the release of OrcaFlex 11.1.

It is a shame that we won’t be able to meet in person this year. However, one benefit of virtual meetings is that they will be available to users who are not located in the venues that we visit for our physical meetings.

Please watch out for notification of these meetings later in the year. We look forward to seeing you then (virtually!) and sharing with you the new developments in our software.

We have just released a minor upgrade to OrcaFlex, version 11.0d. Version 11.0d introduces some minor new functionality and fixes a number of bugs. In addition, we have made a number of significant performance improvements for OrcaWave calculations. Full details of the changes are described in the documentation:

• OrcaFlex
• OrcaWave

We recommend that all users of 11.0 upgrade to 11.0d.

A patch to upgrade from 11.0a, 11.0b or 11.0c to 11.0d can be downloaded here. The full installation program can also be downloaded from your Orcina download page. Please contact us if you do not have the link to your Orcina download page.

Back in November 2019, we released OrcaFlex version 11.0. This included the initial release of our diffraction analysis program OrcaWave.

At the time of release, we had performed extensive validation of OrcaWave, by comparing its results to theoretical predictions where possible, and also by comparing results from OrcaWave to results from Wamit. We have now written up this validation work and published it in a comprehensive validation report.

The report (including all input files and meshes) can be downloaded from the validation page.

Back in 2016 we published An introduction to the Python interface to OrcaFlex. This is a high level overview and introduction to the Python interface that attempts to fill in some of the gaps not covered by the reference documentation.

We have just released an updated and extended version of this document. The document now covers some functionality that has been added to OrcaFlex since its original release in 2016, specifically frequency domain and diffraction. Additionally, we have added sections covering extreme value statistics and fatigue analysis.

The updated version of the document can be downloaded from our documentation page.

We also offer a single day introductory workshop devoted entirely to the Python interface to OrcaFlex.

We have just released a minor upgrade to OrcaFlex, version 11.0c. Version 11.0c introduces some minor new functionality and fixes a number of bugs. Full details of the changes are described in the documentation:

• OrcaFlex
• OrcaWave

We recommend that all users of 11.0 upgrade to 11.0c.

A patch to upgrade from 11.0a or 11.0b to 11.0c can be downloaded here. The full installation program can also be downloaded from your Orcina download page. Please contact us if you do not have the link to your Orcina download page.