Ashes 4.2

• Nonlinear material beam elements — New Giuffré-Menegotto-Pinto (GMP) bilinear material law and plastic-hinge beam element, usable end to end: create a GMP material in the materials editor, declare GMP materials and a per-member PlasticHinge element type in the support section file, with yield-color visualization in the 3D view and 25+ new per-hinge sensor fields (plastic rotation, accumulated plastic rotation, yield indicator, effective yield moment, moment-to-yield ratio, dissipated hysteresis energy, reversal counts). Ships with an example input file
• Backtracking Newton line search — Optional solver step control (FemDynamic.UseLineSearch, off by default) that helps strongly nonlinear models such as plastic collapse converge; results of existing models are unchanged when left off
• Tidal turbine support — New tidal turbine model types (RNA-only and tubular tower), a tuned default tidal model and tidal blade, currents handling, a "Waves = None" option, drag and hydrodynamic loads on submerged nacelles and towers, and support for turbines that have no atmosphere
• Tubular joint fatigue reworked (DNVGL-RP-C203, 2016) — Rebuilt Stress Concentration Factor engine with per-brace joint classification, configurable Y-ness, a K-vs-Y comparison dialog, and detailed per-joint info tables (context parameters, chord/brace dimensionless properties, allowed ranges with in-range status, and descriptions)
• Dockable Display Settings panel — Display Settings is now a panel that can dock into the main window or float freely, applies changes immediately (no OK/Apply), uses a compact top tab bar when docked, and scrolls inside its dock so docking no longer grows the window off-screen
• Stress coloring across the cross section — New "Vary stress across cross section" mode with a signed diverging colormap (blue compression, red tension), stress-colored end caps, and magenta yield flagging
• Blade-follow camera and blade visualization options — New blade-tip-follow camera view (looking toward the root, scroll-wheel zoom along the pitch axis), plus toggles for the blade pitch axis, blade mid-points line, and blade outer-layer visibility, with a "Toggle blade view" toolbar button
• Per-blade blade types in batch — Each blade in a rotor can be assigned a different blade-database type via the batch CSV (blade names joined with &), with a clear count-mismatch error instead of a silent fallback
• Per-rotor initial pitch and RPM overrides — Rotor.SchemeForInitialPitchAngle and Rotor.SchemeForInitialRpm (including a "Bearings locked" option that replaces the old MainShaft.BearingsLocked) let the initial collective pitch and RPM be taken from a local rotor parameter
• Individual blade pitch control from Python — Python scripts can set demanded pitch per blade via model.RNA.BladeN.demanded_pitch_angle, and the rotor sensor exposes demanded-pitch fields for blades 1/2/3 (for individual pitch control). Includes a Python IPC example
• New CLI options — --createdlcbatch expands an IEC design load case into a batch CSV (reusing the same engine as the desktop "Generate load cases" dialog); --listblades (with --includeexperimental) dumps the blade database as YAML; --exportblade exports a blade; and --convert simpleyaml produces a lean, flat tag:value export alongside the existing --convert yaml
• YAML project files as a first-class input — YAML exports now include the blade type and can be passed directly as -projectfile to the CLI
• Richer support section export — Exported support section files now document and round-trip the beam-element type (Timoshenko, Euler-Bernoulli, PlasticHinge), all bilinear GMP material columns, and cross-section material
• Viterna polar extrapolation hardening — Polars are validated to cover ±90° (Viterna) or the full ±180° range, rejecting polars that end in the post-stall flat-plate region, with improved Cl/Cd/Cm interpolation and extrapolation
• Live batch log — batch-log.txt is now rewritten on every status update so it reflects progress during the run instead of only at completion, with clearer batch state messages
• Shadow and rendering improvements — Turbine ground shadows are no longer clipped in the distance, all surfaces (blades, sea, ground, beams) sample the shadow map consistently, H-beam shadows no longer vanish during simulation, and the wind field is no longer drawn below the ground or sea level
• Dark mode completed — Recolored the remaining black toolbar and action icons in dark mode across the Blade, RNA, and Materials database widgets, the Python and Bladed-DLL controller actions, and the batch Copilot/clock/back-arrow icons, and removed hardcoded light palettes so all dialogs follow the app theme
• Sensor preferences — New tab in the Preferences window for sensor preferences (including a joint-fatigue Y-ness setting)
• My account — The "Show profile" menu entry is now "My account" and opens the simis.io account page already logged in
• Sensible window behavior on a fresh install (no saved layout): the window opens centered at 80% of the screen, floating panels stay above the main window, the close (x) button works again on the side panes, and the maximize button shows a restore glyph when maximized

2 Bugs fixed

• Fixed double-counted initial azimuth in "Loads only" analysis that made blades appear wrongly coned
• Fixed being unable to import towers and support sections from models created with older versions
• Fixed being unable to import H-shape cross-section files
• Fixed batch CSV import accepting invalid blade-station sensor numbers (which then failed silently), and being unable to add two aerodynamic blade-station sensors in one batch
• Fixed external-controller (Python and Bladed DLL) path parameters being reported as "could not be applied"
• Fixed the Python pitch actuator not working, and Ashes freezing indefinitely when a controller Python script crashed (now shows a "Waiting for Python script" popup)
• Fixed recent projects disappearing from the start page when temporarily unavailable
• Fixed the blade database window not being resizable and able to open off-screen
• Fixed load-color swatches on the Display Settings panel rendering blank
• Hardened the embedded login/web view against several crashes
• Suppressed spurious "unknown user type" warnings on startup