Dassault Systèmes Announces New Release of Abaqus Unified FEA from SIMULIA

Latest Release Delivers Advanced General Contact and Modeling Capabilities for Enhanced Realistic Simulation

Paris, France, and Providence, R.I. – Dassault Systèmes (DS) (Nasdaq: DASTY; Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA), a world leader in 3D and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, today announced the availability of Abaqus 6.8 Extended Functionality (6.8-EF), its technology-leading finite element analysis (FEA) software suite from SIMULIA.

Engineers, designers, researchers, and scientists use Abaqus to lower costs and reduce cycle times through the realistic simulation of all products, materials, and processes behaviors, including stress, impact, crush, fluid-structure interaction, and thermal dynamics.

Abaqus 6.8-EF includes new and improved capabilities in general contact, the modeling of spot welds, fasteners, and elastomeric foams, and computational performance. It is focused on delivering technology to solve specific engineering challenges across all industries including automotive, aerospace, electronics, energy, packaged goods, and medical devices.

"The latest release of Abaqus demonstrates SIMULIA’s commitment to delivering innovative realistic simulation technology for our customers in a wide range of industries,” stated Steve Crowley, director of product management, SIMULIA. “The new and enhanced features in Abaqus 6.8-EF, will enable our customers to deepen their understanding of product behavior and accelerate the development of innovative products.”

Key enhancements in the new release include:

* The new general contact implementation in Abaqus/Standard offers a simplified and highly automated method for defining contact interactions. This capability is useful for a diverse range of industry applications—from automotive transmissions and brake assemblies, to medical devices and surgical equipment, to the behavior and manufacturing of packaged goods.
* New Abaqus/CAE modeling techniques for spot welds and fasteners allow users to create attachment points that follow a model edge or conform to a regular pattern, particularly useful for simulation of welded automotive and aerospace components.
* A low-density foam model in Abaqus/Explicit enables automotive engineers to simulate energy-absorbing materials in crash applications. This capability allows users to model the low-density, highly compressible elastomeric foams that are widely used in automobile passive safety systems. This can also be used in the design of foams commonly used in packaging of hand-held and other electronic devices.
* A selective subcycling feature in Abaqus/Explicit helps engineers in defense and shipbuilding to evaluate the realistic behavior of the very large structures that are common to those industries. This feature improves model performance by enabling much larger mesh densities in areas undergoing large strains, such as in the analysis of ship structures or land vehicles subjected to impact.
* An enhanced SolidWorks Associative Interface provides geometry transfer and maintains the relationship between SolidWorks and Abaqus models. Updates include improved performance and robustness for large assemblies and support for SolidWorks 2009.

About SIMULIA
SIMULIA is the Dassault Systèmes brand that delivers a scalable portfolio of Realistic Simulation solutions including the Abaqus product suite for Unified Finite Element Analysis, multiphysics solutions for insight into challenging engineering problems, and SIMULIA SLM for managing simulation data, processes, and intellectual property. By building on established technology, respected quality, and superior customer service, SIMULIA makes realistic simulation an integral business practice that improves product performance, reduces physical prototypes, and drives innovation. Headquartered in Providence, RI, USA, SIMULIA provides sales, services, and support through a global network of regional offices and distributors. For more information, visit www.simulia.com.

About Dassault Systèmes
As a world leader in 3D and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, Dassault Systèmes brings value to more than 100,000 customers in 80 countries. A pioneer in the 3D software market since 1981, Dassault Systèmes develops and markets PLM application software and services that support industrial processes and provide a 3D vision of the entire lifecycle of products from conception to maintenance to recycling. The Dassault Systèmes portfolio consists of CATIA for designing the virtual product - SolidWorks for 3D mechanical design - DELMIA for virtual production - SIMULIA for virtual testing - ENOVIA for global collaborative lifecycle management, and 3DVIA for online 3D lifelike experiences. Dassault Systèmes’ shares are listed on Euronext Paris (#13065, DSY.PA) and Dassault Systèmes’ ADRs may be traded on the US Over-The-Counter (OTC) market (DASTY). For more information, visit http://www.3ds.com.

CATIA, DELMIA, ENOVIA, SIMULIA, SolidWorks and 3DVIA are registered trademarks of Dassault Systèmes or its subsidiaries in the US and/or other countries.