Makers of MOSES - The Final Answer in Marine Simulation
What Is New In Rev. 5.06

OSCAR II and ISAAC Killed in Internet Explosion:

Since 1989 until this release, we have had three products: MOSES, OSCAR II, and ISAAC. This has served us well, but with the use of the Internet, it has become quite a burden to keep all of these updated. As a result, we now have only a single product, MOSES. If you have a license for one of the recently deceased programs, you will get a MOSES with at least the same capabilities you currently enjoy. Most of you will get more capabilities. The only change you should notice is that you: run a new program name and the main menu may have some new commands available.

General Changes:

REV 5.06 is a minor one with respect to changes in the programs themselves, but a major one with respect to the documentation. Since we started with the business of using a "web browser" to access our documentation, we have tried several different approaches. Now, hopefully, we have got it right. The entire structure of the release directory has been changed to accommodate the new document structure which is built around the concept of the MOSES HELP DESK. Here, we have general categories with links to the specifics. Many of these things were around in the last release, but in different places. Now, there is a unified structure.
  • The old "Tutorial" is gone. Parts of it remain as "How To Cope With MOSES", but the remainder is replaced with a new section " "How to Do" which also contains the old sample problems. The structure is, however, different. The new structure is by tasks one may want to perform. The first part of each task section is a general description of the task itself and what is important. This is followed by specific samples which now have detailed documentation. (We are not finished with this, so some of the examples currently lack documentation.)

  • The old "Frequently Asked Questions" has been greatly expanded and now has a list for easy browsing.

  • There is a new section, "How MOSES Deals With". This is really the theoretical basis of MOSES by general category. Again, this is a work in progress. There are several complete sections, but many issues remain undocumented.

  • The links to all of the documentation are here: the online reference manual, manuals for printing, the verification manual, etc. Also, there is a section for "Miscellaneous Technical Information" which at the moment has some old reports and papers which may be of interest.

  • Finally, there are links to the sections on "Running the Software" and "Maintaining the Software".

In conclusion, we have created an open structure, capable of being expanded, but yet quite useful as it stands. We will continue with the effort.

What No Longer Works:

For the moment, everything from the old release will work here with no modification.

What Answers Will Change:

We recently found some rather troubling behavior for fatigue of over stressed members. In particular, if the stress in a highly stressed beam was increased, the CDR's would decrease! This only happens rarely, but it pointed out that damage could be missed if the structure was poorly designed. As a result, we have add a new option, -F_STRESS to the &REP_SEL command which changes the algorithm for these cases. Click here to read the new documentation. The way that Tanaka damping is treated when using spectral linearization has changed. The formulation of this damping is not really suited for spectral linearization and in the past, one needed to use a multiplier of about 3.7 to get results comparable with those obtained from the standard linearization. This has been changed. Now, using spectral linearization with the defaults will produce results which are comparable to regular linearization. If you have used -SPE_MUL with a big value, you will now be over damping the problem.

The defaults for the &EQUI have been changed. There has always been an undocumented option, -OMEGA which defines a fraction of the inertia which is added to the stiffness when finding equilibrium. In the past, the default for this was a constant value of .22361. Now, if you have any mooring lines defined in the system, the default is .02236. With no mooring lines, the situation is unchanged. We have found that this really speeds convergence, but the position found will be a bit different than before. Also, -OMEGA is now documented. Click here to read the new documentation.

Tank Capacities:

MOSES can now compute tank capacities. This is done is the Hydrostatics Menu, and part of the results is the sounding in the tank. As a result, you can also now define a sounding tube. Click here to read the documentation for defining a sounding tube, or click here to read the documentation for computing capacities.

New String Functions:

A new ACTION has been added, REL_MOTION, to the &POINT string function. This allows one to easily find relative position information during static processes. Also, a new string function, &V_TRANSF, has been added which transforms vectors, locations, and forces from global to body coordinates and back. Click here to read the documentation.

New Options for Rollers:

In the past, ROLLERS had no data defined for them. In many cases, however, one may want to have a set of rollers at different locations to restrain a pipe. Now this can be considered. Click here to read the documentation.

New Beam Class Options:

In the past, it was not possible to override the stiffness for shear deflections of a beam or to override the points at which stresses will be computed. The -SECTION option now has shear multipliers and the new option -POINTS allows definition of one's own stress points. These options are available on both the beam class definition command and the shape definition command. Click here to read the documentation.

New Structural Post-Processing:

A two new types of beam structural post-processing reports and one new report for joints and plates have been added. In the past, one could obtain a count of the number of cycles of various sizes for beam shears and moments. Now, one can get this information for stresses in tubular joints, beams, and plates. Also, for beams, a stress report has been added. this report gives the true stress at different points at different locations along a beam.