NEi Nastran

Last updated
NEi Software Products
Spaceshipone-motor-bulkhead.jpg
SpaceShipOne motor bulkhead analyzed in NEi Nastran
Developer(s) NEi Software
Stable release
V10.2 / 2013
Operating system Windows XP, Linux
Type Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) software
Website www.NEiSoftware.com
Example of NEi Nastran analysis result. Noraneng.JPG
Example of NEi Nastran analysis result.

NEi Nastran was an engineering analysis and simulation software product of NEi Software (formerly known as Noran Engineering, Inc.) Based on NASA's Structural Analysis program NASTRAN, the software is a finite element analysis (FEA) solver used to generate solutions for linear and nonlinear stress, dynamics, and heat transfer characteristics of structures and mechanical components. NEi Nastran software is used with all major industry pre and post processors including Femap, a product of Siemens PLM Software, in house brands NEi Nastran in-CAD, NEi Fusion, and NEi Works for SolidWorks. [1] This software was acquired by Autodesk in May 2014. [2]

Contents

History

The original NASTRAN program came out of NASA's need to develop a common generic structural analysis program that would be used by all of the centers supporting the space program. [3] A specification was written and a contract was awarded to Computer Sciences Corporation for development of NAsa STRuctural ANalysis (NASTRAN) software. NASTRAN was released to NASA in 1968.

Improvements

In the late 1960s, Finite Element Analysis software was confined to run on expensive mainframe computers and highly trained specialists were needed to apply the program. In this environment, the aerospace industry was the typical user because they had critical projects which could justify the resources FEA demanded. With improvements to the software and wider use of mainframes, FEA technology gradually spread to large corporations that could afford funding the huge investment in hardware, software, and a dedicated FEA staff. Usage spread from primarily aerospace and military applications to the automobile and maritime industries.

The microprocessor revolution and the advent of Personal Computers (PCs) in the 1980s brought tremendous improvements in computing power, significant reductions in computing costs, and the steady development of numerical methods and algorithms. In the mid-1980s, Noran Engineering recognized the long term advantages and impact that the PC hardware revolution could have on the engineering analysis field and embarked on a project to significantly enhance and modernize the original NASTRAN code and port it to PCs.

The first commercial version of NEi Nastran for use on PCs was released in 1990. The new code had a number of changes in architecture and programming language compared to legacy Nastran written originally for mainframes. These differences were intended to take advantage of the dramatic changes in computer hardware taking place and provide the code with key strategic advantages for the new PC platform. [4] For example, since the cost of memory was dramatically reduced it was feasible to perform many operations faster in memory that normally were only done on disk.

Present day

NEi Nastran V10.0 was released in May 2010. It incorporates over 85 customer driven enhancements including the following additions: nonlinear composite Progressive Ply Failure Analysis (PPFA), concrete material model, direct enforced motion, bolt preload, enhanced rigid element features, visualization support for various entities, automatic dynamic plots during nonlinear analysis, transparent max/min, and a new look and feel for its Editor tool. [5]

In August 2014, AutoDesk bought NEi Nastran and the NEi Nastran technology is included in "Autodesk Nastran 2015", "Autodesk Nastran In-CAD 2015" and "Autodesk Simulation Mechanical 2015 R1".

Related Research Articles

Computer-aided design Constructing a product by means of computer

Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve communications through documentation, and to create a database for manufacturing. Designs made through CAD software are helpful in protecting products and inventions when used in patent applications. CAD output is often in the form of electronic files for print, machining, or other manufacturing operations. The terms computer-aided drafting (CAD) and computer aided design and drafting (CADD) are also used.

Computer-aided engineering Use of software for engineering design and analysis

Computer-aided engineering (CAE) is the broad usage of computer software to aid in engineering analysis tasks. It includes finite element analysis (FEA), computational fluid dynamics (CFD), multibody dynamics (MBD), durability and optimization. It is included with computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) in the collective abbreviation "CAx".

LS-DYNA

LS-DYNA is an advanced general-purpose multiphysics simulation software package developed by the former Livermore Software Technology Corporation (LSTC), which was acquired by Ansys in 2019. While the package continues to contain more and more possibilities for the calculation of many complex, real world problems, its origins and core-competency lie in highly nonlinear transient dynamic finite element analysis (FEA) using explicit time integration. LS-DYNA is used by the automobile, aerospace, construction and civil engineering, military, manufacturing, and bioengineering industries.

NASTRAN is a finite element analysis (FEA) program that was originally developed for NASA in the late 1960s under United States government funding for the aerospace industry. The MacNeal-Schwendler Corporation (MSC) was one of the principal and original developers of the publicly available NASTRAN code. NASTRAN source code is integrated in a number of different software packages, which are distributed by a range of companies.

Ansys American technology company

Ansys, Inc. is an American company based in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. It develops and markets CAE/multiphysics engineering simulation software for product design, testing and operation and offers its products and services to customers worldwide.

MSC Software Corporation is an American simulation software technology company based in Newport Beach, California, that specializes in simulation software.

Dassault Systèmes Simulia Corp. is a computer-aided engineering (CAE) vendor. Formerly known as Abaqus Inc. and previously Hibbitt, Karlsson & Sorensen, Inc., (HKS), the company was founded in 1978 by David Hibbitt, Bengt Karlsson and Paul Sorensen, and has its headquarters in Providence, Rhode Island.

Femap is an engineering analysis program sold by Siemens Digital Industries Software that is used to build finite element models of complex engineering problems ("pre-processing") and view solution results ("post-processing"). It runs on Microsoft Windows and provides CAD import, modeling and meshing tools to create a finite element model, as well as postprocessing functionality that allows mechanical engineers to interpret analysis results. The finite element method allows engineers to virtually model components, assemblies, or systems to determine behavior under a given set of boundary conditions, and is typically used in the design process to reduce costly prototyping and testing, evaluate differing designs and materials, and for structural optimization to reduce weight.

Abaqus

Abaqus FEA is a software suite for finite element analysis and computer-aided engineering, originally released in 1978. The name and logo of this software are based on the abacus calculation tool. The Abaqus product suite consists of five core software products:

  1. Abaqus/CAE, or "Complete Abaqus Environment". It is a software application used for both the modeling and analysis of mechanical components and assemblies (pre-processing) and visualizing the finite element analysis result. A subset of Abaqus/CAE including only the post-processing module can be launched independently in the Abaqus/Viewer product.
  2. Abaqus/Standard, a general-purpose Finite-Element analyzer that employs implicit integration scheme (traditional).
  3. Abaqus/Explicit, a special-purpose Finite-Element analyzer that employs explicit integration scheme to solve highly nonlinear systems with many complex contacts under transient loads.
  4. Abaqus/CFD, a Computational Fluid Dynamics software application which provides advanced computational fluid dynamics capabilities with extensive support for preprocessing and postprocessing provided in Abaqus/CAE - discontinued in Abaqus 2017 and further releases.
  5. Abaqus/Electromagnetic, a Computational electromagnetics software application which solves advanced computational electromagnetic problems.

NEi Software, founded as Noran Engineering, Inc. in 1991, is an engineering software company that develops, publishes and promotes FEA software programs including its flagship product NEi Nastran. The FEA algorithms allow engineers to analyze how a structure will behave under a variety of conditions. The types of analysis include linear and nonlinear stress, dynamic, and heat transfer analysis. MCT, PPFA, dynamic design analysis method, optimization, fatigue, CFD and event simulation are just some of the specialized types of analysis supported by the company.

Z88 is a software package for the finite element method (FEM) and topology optimization. A team led by Frank Rieg at the University of Bayreuth started development in 1985 and now the software is used by several universities, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises. Z88 is capable of calculating two and three dimensional element types with a linear approach. The software package contains several solvers and two post-processors and is available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Unix/Linux computers in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Benchmark tests conducted in 2007 showed a performance on par with commercial software.

NEi Fusion

NEi Fusion is a finite element analysis program sold by NEi Software that is used by engineers to build and analyze 3D models of parts and assemblies of various products. NEi Fusion digital-simulation software virtually applies forces, pressures, vibration, acceleration loads, or thermal conditions to 3D models of parts, structures, and assemblies. It obtains results of various engineering parameters, such as deformation, stresses, strains, temperature distributions, and modal shapes the design would experience if implemented. The results, which range from tables of data to contour plots and animations, provide engineering insight. For example, result visualizations like color-coded, contour plots can help deepen understanding of physical phenomena in complex geometry. NEi Fusion consists of a 3D parametric CAD modeler powered by SolidWorks with NEi Nastran finite element analysis solvers. NEi Fusion runs on Microsoft Windows and provides CAD modeling, import and meshing tools.

SimulationX Software application

SimulationX is a CAE software application running on Microsoft Windows for the physical simulation of technical systems. It is developed and sold by ESI Group.

ADINA is a commercial engineering simulation software program that is developed and distributed worldwide by ADINA R & D, Inc. The company was founded in 1986 by Dr. Klaus-Jürgen Bathe, and is headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, United States. On April 7, 2022, Bentley Systems acquired ADINA R&D, Inc.

VisualFEA

VisualFEA is a finite element analysis software program for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It is developed and distributed by Intuition Software, Inc. of South Korea, and used chiefly for structural and geotechnical analysis. Its strongest point is its intuitive, user-friendly design based on graphical pre- and postprocessing capabilities. It has educational features for teaching and learning structural mechanics, and finite element analysis through graphical simulation. It is widely used in college-level courses related to structural mechanics and finite element methods.

HyperSizer is computer-aided engineering (CAE) software used for stress analysis and sizing optimization of metallic and composite structures. Originally developed at the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as ST-SIZE, it was licensed for commercial use by Collier Research Corporation in 1996. Additional proprietary code was added and the software was marketed under the name HyperSizer.

Simcenter Amesim is a commercial simulation software for the modeling and analysis of multi-domain systems. It is part of systems engineering domain and falls into the mechatronic engineering field.

SmartDO is a multidisciplinary design optimization software, based on the Direct Global Search technology developed and marketed by FEA-Opt Technology. SmartDO specialized in the CAE-Based optimization, such as CAE, FEA, CAD, CFD and automatic control, with application on various physics phenomena. It is both GUI and scripting driven, allowed to be integrated with almost any kind of CAD/CAE and in-house codes.

FEATool Multiphysics

FEATool Multiphysics is a physics, finite element analysis (FEA), and PDE simulation toolbox. FEATool Multiphysics features the ability to model fully coupled heat transfer, fluid dynamics, chemical engineering, structural mechanics, fluid-structure interaction (FSI), electromagnetics, as well as user-defined and custom PDE problems in 1D, 2D (axisymmetry), or 3D, all within a graphical user interface (GUI) or optionally as script files. FEATool has been employed and used in academic research, teaching, and industrial engineering simulation contexts.

References

  1. ↑ Design World Staff (March 11, 2008), "Analysis and Simulation Create Virtual Product Testing", Design World
  2. ↑ http://www.3dcadworld.com/autodesk-acquires-nei-nastran-solver/ "AUTODESK ACQUIRES NEI NASTRAN SOLVER"
  3. ↑ "NASA Technology", Www.nasa.gov, October 21, 2008
  4. ↑ Livingstone, Paul (August 17, 2009), "Tying It All Together", R&D Magazine
  5. ↑ Wong, Kenneth (June 24, 2010), "Looking Under the Hood of FEA Results with NEi Editor", Desktop Engineering
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.