The computation engine for soil volumes in the MALT and MALZ computation modules has been updated to properly account for patches located directly at a soil layer interface for horizontally layered soil models. In previous versions of the software, volume faces located directly at a soil layer interface were assumed to be located in the soil layer containing the volume. This simplified the algorithm but could lead to certain inaccuracies in the computations. In the example depicted in Figure 39, a 6×6 mesh, 26 m × 26 m grid is buried in backfill modeled as a soil volume. The system resistance computed using the new approach is about 6% higher than that computed with the simplified approach.
Another important benefit of this enhancement is that only one set of patches is now required when a volume crosses a soil layer interface, reducing the amount of resources needed to run such cases and making them run faster. In the previous approach, two sets of patches (one in each layer) were used.
Figure 39: Side view of grid buried in backfill modeled using a soil volume.
Migration to 64 bits of Most Modules
We have also migrated several applications to run as 64-bit processes, allowing larger cases to run without memory limitation issues.
Documentation
Throughout 2021 and continuing into 2022, SES’s documentation offerings were expanded to include several new Mini How-to Manuals, How to Manuals, and Quick Start Guides. All guides and manuals were updated to reflect changes and improvements to the software, and have now been translated to Chinese, French, and Spanish. New video tutorials were created, and video tutorials are now available in Chinese. Portuguese was added as a fifth supported language.
Quick Start Guides
There are two new Quick Start Guides, for SESTrainSimulator and SESCPCalculator, and the six existing Quick Start Guides, included with SES Software since before version 17.0, were updated for consistency with recent changes to the applications. Each of the eight Quick Start Guides are now available in French, Spanish, and Chinese.
Figure 40: Quick Start guides.
How-to Manuals
With the addition of a new How-to Manual for SESCurvefitDigitizer, there are now a total of sixteen How-to Manuals that are included with SES software. Reflecting ongoing improvements to the software interfaces, the text and images in all How-to Manuals have been updated. In particular, the How-to Manual Lightning Transient Study of a Communciation Tower was substantially modified for consistency with the interface of SESTransient, which is the successor to AutoTransient, on which the previous version of the manual had been based. All How-to Manuals are now available in French, Spanish, and Chinese.
Figure 41: How-to manuals.
Mini How-to Manuals
There are two new Mini How-to Manuals, for FFTSES and SESTralin, bringing to three the total number of Mini How-to Manuals included with SES Software, each are now available in French, Spanish, and Chinese.
Video Tutorials
In addition to a new video tutorial for SoilModelManager, our video tutorial collection has been expanded to include a four-part series on SESScript & Macros. All video tutorials are now also available in Chinese.
Now “Speaking Portuguese”
In early 2022, a version in Portuguese of the SES website was deployed, followed throughout the spring by continuous translation work that resulted in the majority of our applications now offering the option to display a Portuguese interface. Client support is available in Portuguese, as well.
Portuguese is the official language of nine nations and spoken natively by a quarter of a billion people. SES’s ongoing effort to include it as a fifth fully supported language is congruent with our commitment to serve our global client base with documentation that is thorough, useful, and clear.
Figure 42: Versions in Portuguese of the SES website and application interfaces.
