MSC Apex 2025.1 introduces a significant stride in developing comprehensive beam functionality, while also delivering substantial enhancements in post-processing and visualisation, including the long-awaited pre-processing cutting plane and expanded custom tools. You’ll experience notable performance improvements across various operations, such as edge tie generative behaviour, non-structural mass display, and STL file import.
Available versions: 2025.x , 2024.x , 2023.x , 2022.x ,…
MSC Apex 2025.1 Tested Picture
MSC Apex 2025.1 introduces new options for creating scenarios, evolving from the previous manual method that required users to build scenarios from scratch using default MSC Nastran values. The new “automatic” option streamlines scenario setup by automatically creating the necessary MSC Nastran data and incorporating user-provided input. The “User” option provides enhanced flexibility, allowing users to define and execute custom scripts for highly automated scenario generation.
In previous versions of MSC Apex, nonlinear transient analysis had limited support, so it was only available by enabling the “Display Partially Supported Scenarios, Steps and Substeps” setting under scenarios and studies. In this release, this support is enhanced and is now available in SOL 400.
Enhanced results and output post-processing
Directly obtain Root Mean Square (RMS) Von-Mises stresses during Random Response analyses in both SOL 111 and SOL 200 to evaluate structural performance under random loading. External post-processing tools or manual calculations aren’t necessary, as results are delivered straight from the solver using the new RMSVM option in the STRESS (case-control) command.
MSC Apex 2025.1 introduces significant enhancements for artificial damping energy within MSC Nastran analysis, particularly in nonlinear static simulations. The primary purpose of adding artificial damping energy in nonlinear static analysis is to stabilise the simulation and accelerate its convergence. This enhancement allows users to investigate the distribution of artificial damping energy across the model, along with other related artificial damping results. These include the artificial damping for each iteration, as well as its density and percentage. This provides crucial insights into how the damping is stabilising the simulation and where it is being applied.
Users can now choose their preferred composite strain output form through a new common setting. This allows the system to output composite strain as total strain, aligning with the usual composite output request for elastic-plastic material in linear static analysis, whereas it previously output mechanical direct strain and scientific shear strain.
MSC Apex 2025.1 significantly enhances composite modelling visualisation by defaulting to show geometry and mesh in front of panels and zones in the viewport, providing a cleaner and clearer view. When using the panel tool, panel and zone tessellations are intelligently brought to the front for easier navigation, complemented by new picking filters, stage buttons for ply assignment/editing, and global visibility controls. These improvements collectively streamline the workflow so users can more easily interact with, assign, and manage composite plies and zones.
Workflow and performance optimisations
A dedicated effort has been made to ensure the robustness and reliability of the new NLPERF solver for nonlinear static analysis in MSC Nastran 2025.1. Key improvements have been implemented in areas such as MPCs, RBEs, contact handling, and time/load stepping strategies.
For example, the Lagrange Multiplier (LM) method is now the default approach for handling rigid elements (e.g., RBEs), following enhancements that improve conflict resolution between Single Point Constraints (SPCs), Multiple Point Constraints (MPCs), and rigid elements, reducing the risk of numerical issues.
Over 90% of previously identified issues have been resolved, including those related to convergence failures, solver crashes, and excessive memory consumption. In MSC Apex, the setting for selecting the high-performance solver matches the MSC Nastran default.
MSC Nastran 2025.1 introduces the MUMPS solver (MUltifrontal Massively Parallel Sparse direct Solver) for residual vector computation in all modal solutions (SOL 103, 110, 111, 112, 200, 400). This accelerates modal and residual vector calculations, particularly for solid element-dominated models, where performance improvements exceed 50%. The solver handles both symmetric and unsymmetric stiffness matrices (e.g., real coupled modes). This option can be added in the file management and executive control options in MSC Apex.
Geometry and meshing enhancements
The new mesh improvement tool is designed to update the coordinates of nodes on elements, improving element quality. This tool is particularly useful for surface meshing, offering flexible control over mesh features, interior/exterior edges, and angle detections. It can also be used with the auto-enhance feature for overall model quality improvement.
Mesh improvement tool and example results
MSC Apex 2025.1 introduces support for mesh control objects on the starting surface of solids for hex meshing. Use mesh control elements, seed points, and mesh control measures on the starting face. This enhancement provides users with greater control and flexibility when setting up hex meshes.
MSC Apex 2025.1 features continuous improvements for skinny surface meshes and proximity meshes. Previously, nodes on the edges of skinny section meshes were not well-aligned near boundary edges; now, nodes on near boundary edges are aligned to the exterior edges. This results in fewer triangle elements and overall better element qualities for both skinny mesh sections and proximity meshes.
This release also introduces a new pop-up warning dialogue that appears when the system detects unintended triangle elements during a pure quad meshing operation. This feature provides users more control over mesh quality, allowing them to choose whether to continue meshing or abort the process. Users can also control the visibility of this warning dialogue through a setting checkbox, enabling them to refine their meshing strategy for optimal quad-only results.
MSC Apex 2025.1 enhances the incremental surface tool by adding support for cell faces within both the constant thickness and incremental methods. This means users can now directly select solid faces or cell faces when extracting midsurfaces, which was not possible before. This capability is beneficial for complex solids with varying thicknesses, as it streamlines the process of splitting them into constant-thickness solids and easily extracting their midsurfaces.
MSC Apex 2025.1 introduces long-awaited cutting plane functionality directly into pre-processing, building upon its existing capabilities in post-processing. This enhancement allows users to easily visualise and manipulate sections of their models by showing clipped views or slices, with extensive controls for adjusting location and orientation via the button and toolbar, consistent with post-processing. A key benefit is that it caps both solid geometry bodies and meshes when cut, providing clearer structural inspection. The cutting plane’s location and orientation are also retained across pre- and post-processing sessions, ensuring a coherent workflow.
Post-processing enhancements
MSC Apex 2025.1 enhances section force sensors, allowing them to be created directly within post-processing. Previously, these were mainly used for Solution 101, but now sensors created in pre-process are shareable across scenarios, while post-process sensors are tied to the specific scenario. This provides greater flexibility in workflow, enabling users to manage and analyse sensor data more directly, including copying data from the data grid and setting sensors as plot targets for detailed review.
The new release introduces the ability to create and target groups directly within post-processing, a feature not available previously. Users can now generate fringe and vector plots specifically for these targeted groups or for only visible elements and nodes. This enhancement provides much more control over plot visualisation, allowing for focused analysis on specific regions of interest and resulting in a clearer, less cluttered view, especially for complex models.
MSC Apex 2025.1 enables the introduction of custom tools directly within the post-processing view. Users can configure these utilities to appear only when relevant by setting their visibility mode in XML files (pre-processing, post-processing, or both). This capability offers significant opportunities for specialised analysis and helps maintain a less cluttered and more efficient user interface by showing tools only where they are applicable.
For dynamic analyses, MSC Apex 2025.1 now supports a vibration view for new scenarios when running the internal Nastran solver. This expands upon previous limitations where the vibration view was only available with integrated solvers. To use this functionality, users must define a force sensor, create frequency response scenarios, and include a modal subcase, thereby providing more detailed insights into dynamic behaviour and model contributions.
MSC Apex 2025.1 introduces the ability to directly import scenarios and models from Nastran H5 files into a new scenario. This removes the previous requirement to first import a BDF file and then attach the H5 results. This enhancement significantly streamlines the workflow and improves efficiency when setting up and managing analysis scenarios derived from H5 data.
Infrastructure improvements and performance
Generative behaviours for edge ties are calculated three times faster. MSC Apex 2025.1 includes a phase one improvement in generative behaviour updates for edge ties. This enhancement specifically targets scenarios where users make changes to geometries with existing edge ties, leading to significantly faster calculations. On customer models, this initial step has shown up to a 3x performance improvement, though further enhancements are still anticipated.
STL imports are completed four times faster. The process of importing STL files to create meshes has been substantially improved in this release. This optimisation allows for quicker creation of meshes from STL data. For decent-sized models, users can expect to see up to a four times performance improvement in STL import times.
Models with large numbers of nonstructural masses are solved much more quickly. MSC Apex 2025.1 addresses display issues and slow BDF import times that previously occurred in models with a large number of nonstructural masses, such as those found in automotive applications. This improvement provides a dramatic increase in display performance, reducing load times from approximately 35 minutes down to 10 seconds for affected models. This streamlines the workflow for models with extensive non-structural mass definitions.
