MSC NASTRAN
CAE tool for multidisciplinary structural analysis
OVERVIEW
MSC Nastran software highlights of latest release CAE features
MSC Nastran is the world’s first FEA structural analysis code that is still the gold standard in a wide range of industries and applications today. It is a multidisciplinary structural analysis application used by engineers to perform static, dynamic, and thermal analysis across the linear and nonlinear domains, complemented with automated structural optimization and award winning embedded fatigue analysis technologies, all enabled by high performance computing. MSC Nastran is the most trusted solution in the industry. MSC Nastran’s predictions are the most consistent and accurate in the industry. Engineers get “right results every time” using MSC Nastran.
Manufacturers leverage MSC Nastran’s unique multidisciplinary approach to structural analysis at various points in the product development process. MSC Nastran may be used to:
• Virtually prototype early in the design process, saving costs traditionally associated with physical prototyping
• Remedy structural issues that may occur during a product’s service, reducing downtime and costs
• Optimize the performance of existing designs or develop unique product differentiators, leading to industry advantages over competitors.
MSC Nastran is based on sophisticated numerical methods, the most prominent being the Finite Element Method. Nonlinear FE problems may be solved either with built-in implicit or explicit numerical techniques.
MSC NASTRAN- ADVANTAGES
• Multidisciplinary Structural Analysis: To build up a comprehensive level of engineering analysis capability, multiple software solutions must be acquired, and users must be trained with each new tool. MSC Nastran features multiple analysis disciplines, enabling customers with one structural analysis solution for a wide variety of engineering problems.
• Structural Assembly Modeling: One structural member is rarely analyzed independently. Structural systems consist of numerous components, and must be analyzed as a whole. MSC Nastran features a number of methods to join multiple components for system level structural analysis.
• Automated Structural Optimization: Design optimization is a critical element in product development, but is often very iterative and requires a great deal of manual effort. MSC Nastran includes optimization algorithms that automatically seek optimal configurations in an allowed design space.
MSC NASTRAN - BENEFITS
Multidisciplinary Structural Analysis:
• Use one platform to perform linear or nonlinear analysis for the following disciplines: static, dynamic (NVH and Acoustics included), thermal, and buckling, and reduce the dependency on multiple structural analysis programs from various vendors
• Perform fatigue analysis with embedded fatigue technologies and reduce the time usually associated with fatigue life determination
• Assess the behavior of advanced composites and fiber reinforced plastics with built in Progressive Failure Analysis and User Defined Services for Mean-field Homogenization coupling with Digimat
2. Structural Assembly Modeling
• Expedite meshing with Permanent Glue, enabling you to connect incongruent meshes that would traditionally require time consuming mesh transitions
• Save time constructing assemblies that consists of welds or fasteners via specialized connector elements
• Speed up the re-analysis of large assemblies by constructing Superelements, and optionally, share Superelements with other manufacturers while concealing confidential design information
• Perform contact analysis and determine contact stresses and contact regions in multi-component designs
3. Automated Structural Optimization
• Optimize for stress, mass, fatigue, etc. while varying design variables such as material properties, geometric dimensions, loads, etc.
• Enhance the shape or profile of structural members with shape optimization
• Find optimal composite laminate ply thicknesses with topometry optimization
• Determine optimal bead or stamp patterns for sheet metal parts with topography optimization
• Remove excess and unnecessary volume with topology optimization
• Simultaneously optimize multiple models across disciplines with Multi Model Optimization