NEWPORT BEACH, CA, Nov 8, 2016 – MSC Software Corp., a global leader in helping product manufacturers to advance their engineering methods with simulation software and services, today announced new releases of MSC Nastran and Patran. MSC Nastran 2017 expands its groundbreaking Nastran Embedded Fatigue capabilities to support vibration fatigue, and delivers faster dynamic analysis performance. Patran 2017 interface has been redesigned to provide a common look for both Windows and Linux with improved graphics.

Release highlights of MSC Nastran:

Vibration Fatigue

• The embedded fatigue analysis capabilities have been extended to perform fatigue analysis in the frequency domain with random vibrations and deterministic vibration loads.

Acoustics

• A capability called PEAKOUT has been introduced to calculate the acoustic participation factors at the peaks of the frequency response.
• The Non Parametric Variability Method allows the user to efficiently run a probabilistic Monte-Carlo simulation in SOL 111 and handle model uncertainties in the mid-frequency interval (300Hz – 1500Hz).

Rotordynamics

Rotordynamic performance is critical for safety and long life of jet engines. Enhancements in this release address performance and improved accuracy for 2D and 3D analyses.

• Structural damping is incorporated for complex eigenvalue analysis and complex frequency response analysis of 2D and 3D rotors.
• Mass and speed correction terms that account for inertial and gyroscopic effects of unbalanced mass can also be incorporated in transient analysis.
• It is now also possible to perform modal complex eigenvalue analysis and complex frequency response analysis for rotors defined using axisymmetric harmonic elements and solid/shell elements.

Performance of Dynamic Analysis

• The parallel modal analysis method technique of ACMS now supports the creation of external superelements, which are widely used to analyze large and full-vehicle models in automotive and aerospace industries.
• With a 20-30% reduction in memory requirements for solid element models, ACMS enables users solve larger models with the available system resources.
• DMP support has been added to the fluid eigen problem whereby the frequency range is subdivided and the work is shared by multiple processes. This can reduce the time to find the fluid modes by a factor of 2-4 depending on the frequency range and problem size.

Optimization

• Topology optimization capability now supports stress constraints, which leads to more efficient mass minimization while meeting the allowable stress levels. Design of components like brackets and engine mounts is made more efficient with this capability.

Advanced Nonlinear

• Creep behavior of solder material used extensively in IC packaging, can now be more accurately simulated with Anand creep model.
• Cohesive contact introduces a flexible ‘glued’ contact used extensively to model structures that are connected with fasteners like rivets, bolts, spot weld, seam welds, and adhesives. This new capability adds the desired flexibility to contact stiffness overcoming the stiff nature of glue contact, while at the same time avoiding costly modeling of discrete connectors.

Results

• The new results database based on HDF5 standard that was introduced in the previous release is extended to support additional outputs including complex eigen value summary table, composite element output in linear solution sequence, bi/multi axial fatigue data, coordinate system transformation matrix, acoustic pressure and velocity data, and intermediate output at requested steps during MSC Nastran run.

Patran 2017

Patran is being released with a newly designed interface, while still maintaining its familiar look and feel.

• Common user interface on both Windows & Linux
• New framework design with improved graphics
• Improved docking/undocking features for the windows in Patran
• Enhanced & interactive spreadsheet widget
• Improved XY plotting feature
• Support for MSC Nastran’s new HDF5 result format
• Support for pre and post processing of MSC Nastran Embedded Vibration Fatigue

About MSC Software

MSC Software is one of the ten original software companies and a global leader in helping product manufacturers to advance their engineering methods with simulation software and services. As a trusted partner, MSC Software helps companies improve quality, save time, and reduce costs associated with design and test of manufactured products. Academic institutions, researchers, and students employ MSC’s technology to expand individual knowledge as well as expand the horizon of simulation. MSC Software employs 1,200 professionals in 20 countries.

For more information about MSC Software’s products and services, please visit www.mscsoftware.com.